must needs drink of the bad
water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst
makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they
die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it
is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are
none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[NOTE 2]

After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water
running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and
there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it.
It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the
desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][NOTE 3]

You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much
like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the
termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an
end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.

NOTE 1. ["The present road from Kerman to Kubenan is to Zerend about 50
miles, to the Sar i Benan 15 miles, thence to Kubenan 30 miles--total 95
miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kubenan, as it took
him seven days to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably
took a circuitous route to the east of the mountains, via Kuhpayeh and
the desert lying to the north of Khabis." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. pp.
496-497.) (Cf. _Major Sykes_, ch. xxiii.)--H. C.]

NOTE 2.--This description of the Desert of Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is
very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lut where water is found
is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called
_Shor-Rud_ (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco
Polo's route from Kerman so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with
Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a
reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to
have been nearly due north from Kerman, in the direction of Tabbas or of
Tun. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass
the Shor-Rud, though at a higher point.

I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as
we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at
daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of _Caligonum_ and
_Salsola_, and not far from the same spot I sa