III. HERE FOLLOWETH CONCERNING THE REALM OF PERSIA.
Reading edition
1. In Persia, however, I saw a very marvellous thing: to wit, that in Tabriz, which is a very great city, containing as many as two hundred thousand houses,[58] dew never falls from heaven; nor doth it rain in summer as in most parts it doth, but they water artificially everything that is grown for man’s food.[59] There also, or thereabouts, on a kind of willows, are found certain little worms, which emit a liquid which congeals upon the leaves of the tree, and also drops upon the ground, white like wax; and that excretion is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.[60]
2. There we have a fine-enough church, and about a thousand of the schismatics converted to our faith, and about as many also in Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham was born, which is a very opulent city, distant about two days from Tabriz.[61]
3. Likewise also at Sultania we have five hundred, or five hundred and fifty. This is eight days’ distant from Tabriz, and we have a very fine church there.
4. In this country of Persia are certain animals called onagri, which are like little asses, but swifter in speed than our horses.[62]
5. This Persia is inhabited by Saracens and Saracenized Tartars, and by schismatic Christians of divers sects, such as Nestorians, Jacobites, Greeks, Georgians, Armenians, and by a few Jews. Persia hath abundance of silk, and also of ultramarine,[63] but they wot not how to prepare it. They have likewise exceeding much gold in the rivers, but they wot not how to extract it, nor be they worthy to do so.
6. Persia extendeth about V[64] days’ journey in length, and as much in breadth. The people of this realm live all too uncleanly, for they sit upon the ground, and eke eat upon the same, putting mess and meats[65] in a trencher for three, four, or five persons together. They eat not on a table-cloth,[66] but on a round sheet of leather, or on a low table of wood or brass, with three legs. And so six, seven, or eight persons eat out of one dish, and that with their hands and fingers; big and little, male and female, all eat after this fashion. And after they have eaten, or even whilst in the middle of their eating, they lick their fingers with tongue and lips, and wipe them on their sleeves,[67] and afterwards, if any grease still remains upon their hands, they wipe them on their shoes. And thus do the folk over all those countries, including Western and Eastern Tartary, except the Hindus, who eat decently enough, though they too eat with their hands.[68]
7. In Persia are some springs, from which flows a kind of pitch, which is called kic[69] (pix, dico, seu Pegua), with which they smear the skins in which wine is carried and stored.
8. Between this country of Persia and India the Less is a certain region where manna falls in a very great quantity, white as snow, sweeter than all other sweet things, delicious, and of an admirable and incredible efficacy. There are also sandhills in great numbers, and very destructive to men; for when the wind blows, the sand flows down just like water from a tank.[70] These countries aforesaid, to wit, Persia, Armenia Major, Chaldeia, as well as Cappadocia and Asia Minor and Greece, abound in good fruits, meats, and other things, like our own country; but their lands are not so populous,—no, not a tithe,—except Greece.