The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 65

Esher is a great city lying in a north-westerly direction from the last, and 400 miles distant from the Port of Aden. It has a king, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden. He has a number of towns and villages under him, and administers his territory well and justly.

The people are Saracens. The place has a very good haven, wherefore many ships from India come thither with various cargoes; and they export many good chargers thence to India.[NOTE 1]

A great deal of white incense grows in this country, and brings in a great revenue to the Prince; for no one dares sell it to any one else; and whilst he takes it from the people at 10 livres of gold for the hundredweight, he sells it to the merchants at 60 livres, so his profit is immense.[NOTE 2]

Dates also grow very abundantly here. The people have no corn but rice, and very little of that; but plenty is brought from abroad, for it sells here at a good profit. They have fish in great profusion, and notably plenty of tunny of large size; so plentiful indeed that you may buy two big ones for a Venice groat of silver. The natives live on meat and rice and fish. They have no wine of the vine, but they make good wine from sugar, from rice, and from dates also.

And I must tell you another very strange thing. You must know that their sheep have no ears, but where the ear ought to be they have a little horn!

They are pretty little beasts.[NOTE 3]

And I must not omit to tell you that all their cattle, including horses, oxen, and camels, live upon small fish and nought besides, for 'tis all they get to eat. You see in all this country there is no gra.s.s or forage of any kind; it is the driest country on the face of the earth. The fish which are given to the cattle are very small, and during March, April, and May, are caught in such quant.i.ties as would astonish you. They are then dried and stored, and the beasts are fed on them from year's end to year's end. The cattle will also readily eat these fish all alive and just out of the water.[NOTE 4]

The people here have likewise many other kinds of fish of large size and good quality, exceedingly cheap; these they cut in pieces of about a pound each, and dry them in the sun, and then store them, and eat them all the year through, like so much biscuit.[NOTE 5]

NOTE 1.--_Shihr_ or _Shehr_, with the article, ES-SHEHR, still exists on the Arabian coast, as a town and district about 330 m. east of Aden. In 1839 Captain Haines described the modern town as extending in a scattered manner for a mile along the sh.o.r.e, the population about 6000, and the trade considerable, producing duties to the amount of 5000_l._ a year. It was then the residence of the Sultan of the Hamum tribe of Arabs. There is only an open roadstead for anchorage. Perhaps, however, the old city is to be looked for about ten miles to the westward, where there is another place bearing the same name, "once a thriving town, but now a desolate group of houses with an old fort, formerly the residence of the chief of the _Kasaidi_ tribe." (_J.R.G.S._ IX. 151-152.) Shehr is spoken of by Barbosa (_Xaer_ in Lisbon ed.; _Pecher_ in Ramusio; _Xeher_ in Stanley; in the two last misplaced to the east of Dhofar): "It is a very large place, and there is a great traffic in goods imported by the Moors of Cambaia, Chaul, Dabul, Batticala, and the cities of Malabar, such as cotton-stuffs ... strings of garnets, and many other stones of inferior value; also much rice and sugar, and spices of all sorts, with coco-nuts; ... their money they invest in horses for India, which are here very large and good. Every one of them is worth in India 500 or 600 ducats." (_Ram._ f. 292.) The name Shehr in some of the Oriental geographies, includes the whole coast up to Oman.

NOTE 2.--The hills of the Shehr and Dhafar districts were the great source of produce of the Arabian frankincense. Barbosa says of Shehr: "They carry away much incense, which is produced at this place and in the interior; ...

it is exported hence all over the world, and here it is used to pay ships with, for on the spot it is worth only 150 farthings the hundredweight."

See note 2, ch. xxvii. supra; and next chapter, note 2.

NOTE 3.--This was no doubt a breed of four-horned sheep, and Polo, or his informant, took the lower pair of horns for abnormal ears. Probably the breed exists, but we have little information on details in reference to this coast. The Rev. G.P. Badger, D.C.L., writes: "There are sheep on the eastern coast of Arabia, and as high up as Mohammerah on the Shatt-al-Arab, _with very small ears indeed;_ so small as to be almost imperceptible at first sight near the projecting horns. I saw one at Mohammerah having _six_ horns." And another friend, Mr. Arthur Grote, tells me he had for some time at Calcutta a 4-horned sheep from Aden.

NOTE 4.--This custom holds more or less on all the Arabian coast from Shehr to the Persian Gulf, and on the coast east of the Gulf also. Edrisi mentions it at Shehr (printed _Shajr_, I. 152), and the Admiral Sidi 'Ali says: "On the coast of Shehr, men and animals all live on fish" (_J.A.S.B._ V. 461). Ibn Batuta tells the same of Dhafar, the subject of next chapter: "The fish consist for the most part of sardines, which are here of the fattest. The surprising thing is that all kinds of cattle are fed on these sardines, and sheep likewise. I have never seen anything like that elsewhere" (II. 197). Compare Strabo's account of the Ichthyophagi on the coast of Mekran (XV. 11), and the like account in the life of Apollonius of Tyana (III. 56).

[Burton, quoted by Yule, says (_Sind Revisited_, 1877, I. p. 33): "The whole of the coast, including that of Mekran, the land of the _Mahi Kharan_ or Ichthyophagi." Yule adds: "I have seen this suggested also elsewhere. It seems a highly probable etymology." See note, p. 402.

--H.C.]

NOTE 5.--At Hasik, east of Dhafar, Ibn Batuta says: "The people here live on a kind of fish called _Al-Lukham_, resembling that called the sea-dog.

They cut it in slices and strips, dry it in the sun, salt it, and feed on it. Their houses are made with fish-bones, and their roofs with camel-hides" (II. 214).

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF DUFAR.

Dufar is a great and n.o.ble and fine city, and lies 500 miles to the north-west of Esher. The people are Saracens, and have a Count for their chief, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden; for this city still belongs to the Province of Aden. It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby. This city has under it many other towns and villages.[NOTE 1]

Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it flows from the tree without any notch; this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.--_Dufar_. The name [Arabic] is variously p.r.o.nounced Dhafar, DHOFAR, Zhafar, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile plain district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Shehr, though according to Haines there is now no _town_ of the name. Ibn Batuta speaks of the city as situated at the extremity of Yemen ("the province of Aden"), and mentions its horse-trade, its unequalled dirt, stench, and flies, and consequent diseases. (See II. 196 seqq.) What he says of the desert character of the tract round the town is not in accordance with modern descriptions of the plain of Dhafar, nor seemingly with his own statements of the splendid bananas grown there, as well as other Indian products, betel, and coco-nut. His account of the Sultan of Zhafar in his time corroborates Polo's, for he says that prince was the son of a cousin of the King of Yemen, who had _been chief of Zhafar under the suzerainete of that King and tributary to him_. The only ruins mentioned by Haines are extensive ones near Haffer, towards the _western_ part of the plain; and this Fresnel considers to be the site of the former city. A lake which exists here, on the landward side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a gulf, and formed the port, "the very good haven," of which our author speaks.

A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbat, which is at the eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of Dhafar in the Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that the city itself was in the eastern part of the plain. The matter evidently needs further examination.

This Dhafar, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to be the _Sephar_ of Genesis (x. 30). But it does not seem to be the _Sapphara metropolis_ of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of the same name: "Dhafar was the name of _two_ cities of Yemen, one of which was near Sana'a ... it was the residence of the Himyarite Princes; some authors allege that it is identical with Sana'a" (_Marasid-al-Ittila_', in Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. p.

124).

_Dofar_ is noted by Camoens for its fragrant incense. It was believed in Malabar that the famous King Cheram Perumal, converted to Islam, died on the pilgrimage to Mecca and was buried at Dhafar, where his tomb was much visited for its sanct.i.ty.

The place is mentioned (_Tsafarh_) in the Ming Annals of China as a Mahomedan country lying, with a fair wind, 10 days N.W. of _Kuli_ (supra, p. 440). Ostriches were found there, and among the products are named drugs which Dr. Bretschneider renders as _Olibanum_, _Storax liquida_, _Myrrh_, _Catechu_(?), _Dragon's blood_. This state sent an emba.s.sy (so-called) to China in 1422. (_Haines_ in _J.R.G.S._ XV. 116 seqq.; _Playfair's Yemen_, p. 31; _Fresnel_ in _J. As._ ser. 3, tom. V.

517 seqq.; _Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen_, p. 56; _Bretschneider_, p. 19.)

NOTE 2.--Frankincense presents a remarkable example of the obscurity which so often attends the history of familiar drugs; though in this case the darkness has been, like that of which Marco spoke in his account of the Caraonas (vol. i. p. 98), much of man's making.

This coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient [Greek: chora libanophoros] or [Greek: libanotophoros], indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other cla.s.sical writers; i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews _Lebonah_, by the Brahmans apparently _Kundu_ and _Kunduru_, by the Arabs _Luban_ and _Kundur_, by the Greeks _Libanos_, by the Romans _Thus_, in mediaeval Latin _Olibanum_, and in English _Frankincense_, i.e.

I apprehend, "Genuine incense," or "Incense Proper."[1] It is still produced in this region and exported from it: but the larger part of that which enters the markets of the world is exported from the roadsteads of the opposite Sumali coast. In ancient times also an important quant.i.ty was exported from the latter coast, immediately west of Cape Gardafui (_Aromatum Prom._), and in the Periplus this frankincense is distinguished by the t.i.tle _Peratic_, "from over the water."

The _Marasid-al-Ittila'_, a Geog. Dictionary of the end of the 14th century, in a pa.s.sage of which we have quoted the commencement in the preceding note, proceeds as follows: "The other Dhafar, which still subsists, is on the sh.o.r.e of the Indian Sea, distant 5 parasangs from Merbath in the province of Shehr. Merbath lies below Dhafar, and serves as its port. Olibanum is found nowhere except in the mountains of Dhafar, in the territory of Shehr; in a tract which extends 3 days in length and the same in breadth. The natives make incisions in the trees with a knife, and the incense flows down. This incense is carefully watched, and can be taken only to Dhafar, where the Sultan keeps the best part for himself; the rest is made over to the people. But any one who should carry it elsewhere than to Dhafar would be put to death."

The elder Niebuhr seems to have been the first to disparage the Arabian produce of olibanum. He recognises indeed its ancient celebrity, and the fact that it was still to some extent exported from Dhafar and other places on this coast, but he says that the Arabs preferred foreign kinds of incense, especially benzoin; and also repeatedly speaks of the superiority of that from India (_des Indes_ and _de l'Inde_), by which it is probable that he meant the same thing--viz., benzoin from the Indian Archipelago. Niebuhr did not himself visit Hadhramaut.

Thus the fame of Arabian olibanum was dying away, and so was our knowledge of that and the opposite African coast, when Colebrooke (1807) published his Essay on Olibanum, in which he showed that a gum-resin, identical as he considered with frankincense, and so named (_Kundur_), was used in India, and was the produce of an indigenous tree, _Boswellia serrata_ of Roxburgh, but thereafter known as _B. thurifera_. This discovery, connecting itself, it may be supposed, with Niebuhr's statements about Indian olibanum (though probably misunderstood), and with the older tradition coming down from Dioscorides of a so-called Indian _libanos_ (supra p. 396), seems to have induced a hasty and general a.s.sumption that the Indian resin was the olibanum of commerce; insomuch that the very existence of Arabian olibanum came to be treated as a matter of doubt in some respectable books, and that down to a very recent date.

In the Atlas to Bruce's Travels is figured a plant under the name of _Angoua_, which the Abyssinians believed to produce true olibanum, and which Bruce says did really produce a gum resembling it.

In 1837 Lieut. Cruttenden of the Indian Navy saw the frankincense tree of Arabia on a journey inland from Merbat, and during the ensuing year the trees of the Sumali country were seen, and partially described by Kempthorne, and Vaughan of the same service, and by Cruttenden himself.

Captain Haines also in his report of the Survey of the Hadhramaut coast in 1843-1844[2] speaks, apparently as an eyewitness, of the frankincense trees about Dhafar as extremely numerous, and adds that from 3000 to 10,000 _maunds_ were annually exported "from Merbat and Dhafar." "3 to 10"

is vague enough; but as the kind of _maund_ is not specified it is vaguer still. Maunds differ as much as _livres Francais_ and _livres sterling_.

In 1844 and 1846 Dr. Carter also had opportunities of examining olibanum trees on this coast, which he turned to good account, sending to Government cuttings, specimens, and drawings, and publishing a paper on the subject in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the R. As. Society (1847).

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Harvest of Frankincense in Arabia. Facsimile of an engraving in Thevet's _Cosmographie Universelle_ (1575), reproduced from the _Bible Educator_.[3]]

But neither Dr. Carter's paper and specimens, nor the previous looser notices of the naval officers, seemed to attract any attention, and men of no small repute went on repeating in their manuals the old story about Indian olibanum. Dr. G. Birdwood however, at Bombay, in the years following 1859, took up the subject with great zeal and intelligence, procuring numerous specimens of the Sumali trees and products; and his monograph of the genus _Boswellia_ in the Linnaean Transactions (read April 1869), to which this note is very greatly indebted, is a most interesting paper, and may be looked on, I believe, as embodying the most correct knowledge as yet attainable. The species as ranked in his table are the following:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Boswellia Frereana (_Birdw._).

1. _Boswellia Carterii_ (Birdw.), including the Arabian tree of Dhafar, and the larger variety called _Mohr Madau_ by the Sumalis.

2. _B. Bhau-dajiana_ (Birdw.), _Mohr A'd_ of the Sumalis.

3. _B. papyrifera_ (Richard). Abyssinian species.

4. _B. thurifera_ (Colebr.), see p. 396 supra.

5. _B. Frereana_ (Birdw.), _Yegar_ of the Sumalis--named after Mr. William Frere, Member of Council at Bombay. No. 2 was named from Bhau Daji, a very eminent Hindu scholar and physician at Bombay (Birdw.).]

No. 1 produces the Arabian olibanum, and Nos. 1 and 2 together the bulk of the olibanum exported from the Sumali coast under the name _Luban-Shehri_.

Both are said to give an inferior kind besides, called _L. Bedawi_. No. 3 is, according to Birdwood, the same as Bruce's _Angoua_. No. 5 is distinctly a new species, and affords a highly fragrant resin sold under the name of _Luban Meti_.

Bombay is now the great mart of frankincense. The quant.i.ty exported thence in 1872-1873 was 25,000 _cwt._, of which nearly one quarter went to China.

Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name "White Incense" by which Polo speaks of it. And the Arabic name _luban_ apparently refers to milk. The Chinese have so translated, calling _Ju-siang_ or Milk-perfume.

Polo, we see, says the tree was like a fir tree; and it is remarkable that a Chinese Pharmacology quoted by Bretschneider says the like, which looks as if their information came from a common source. And yet I think Polo's must have been oral. One of the meanings of _Luban_, from the Kamus, is _Pinus (Freytag)_. This may have to do with the error. Dr. Birdwood, in a paper _Ca.s.sells' Bible Educator_, has given a copy of a remarkable wood engraving from Thevet's _Cosmographie Universelle_ (1575), representing the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through his kind intervention I am able to reproduce here. The text (probably after Polo) speaks of the tree as resembling a fir, but in the cut the firs are in the background; the incense trees have some real suggestion of _Boswellia_, and the whole design has singular spirit and verisimilitude.

Dr. Birdwood thus speaks of the _B. Frereana_, the only species that he has seen in flower: "As I saw the plant in Playfair's garden at Aden ... in young leaf and covered with bloom, I was much struck by its elegant singularity. The long racemes of green star-like flowers, tipped with the red anthers of the stamens (like aigrettes of little stars of emerald set with minute rubies), droop gracefully over the cl.u.s.ters of glossy, glaucous leaves; and every part of the plant (bark, leaves, and flowers) gives out the most refreshing lemon-like fragrance." (_Birdwood_ in Linnaean Transactions for 1869, pp. 109 seqq.; _Hanbury and Fluckiger's Pharmacographia_, pp. 120 seqq.; _Ritter_, xii. 356 seqq.; _Niebuhr, Desc. de l'Arabie_, I. p. 202, II. pp. 125-132.)