The name of REOBARLES, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate between the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures.  Marsden pointed to Rudbar, a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on a river, or intersected by streams—­a suggestion all the happier that he was not aware of the fact that there is a district of RUDBAR exactly in the required position.  The last syllable still requires explanation.  I ventured formerly to suggest that it was the Arabic Lass, or, as Marco would certainly have written it, Les, a robber.  Reobarles would then be RUDBAR-I-LASS, “Robber’s River District.”  The appropriateness of the name Marco has amply illustrated; and it appeared to me to survive in that of one of the rivers of the plain, which is mentioned by both Abbott and Smith under the title of Rudkhanah-i-Duzdi, or Robbery River, a name also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the stream.  This etymology was, however, condemned as an inadmissible combination of Persian and Arabic by two very high authorities both as travellers and scholars—­Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Khanikoff.  The Les, therefore, has still to be explained.[1]

[Major Sykes (Geog.  Journal, 1902, p. 130) heard of robbers, some five miles from Minab, and he adds:  “However, nothing happened, and after crossing the Gardan-i-Pichal, we camped at Birinti, which is situated just above the junction of Rudkhana Duzdi, or ‘River of Theft,’ and forms part of the district of Rudan, in Fars.”

“The Jiruft and Rudbar plains belong to the germsir (hot region), dates, pistachios, and konars (apples of Paradise) abound in them.  Reobarles is Rudbar or Ruedbaris.” (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. 1881, p. 495.)—­H.  C.]

We have referred to Marco’s expressions regarding the great cold experienced on the pass which formed the first descent; and it is worthy of note that the title of “The Cold Mountains” is applied by Edrisi to these very mountains.  Mr. Abbott’s MS. Report also mentions in this direction, Sardu, said to be a cold country (as its name seems to express [see above,—­H.  C.]), which its population (Iliyats) abandon in winter for the lower plains.  It is but recently that the importance of this range of mountains has become known to us.  Indeed the existence of the chain, as extending continuously from near Kashan, was first indicated by Khanikoff in 1862.  More recently Major St. John has shown the magnitude of this range, which rises into summits of 15,000 feet in altitude, and after a course of 550 miles terminates in a group of volcanic hills some 50 miles S.E. of Bamm.  Yet practically this chain is ignored on all our maps!