strong, and is able to endure the force and violence of the waters, and is not easily corrupted[12].  These ships have only one mast, one beam or yard, and one deck, and are not payed with pitch, but with the oil and fat of fishes; and when they cross the sea to India, carrying horses or other cargoes, they lose many ships, because they are not strengthened with iron.  The people of this country are black, and have embraced the religion of Mahomet.  It is the custom of this country, when the master of a family dies, that the widow shall mourn for him publickly once every day, for four years; but there are women who profess the practice of mourning, and are hired to mourn daily for the dead.

In returning from Ormus to Kerman, you pass through a fertile plain, but the bread made there cannot be eaten, except by those who are accustomed to it, it is so exceedingly bitter, on account of the water with which it is made.  In this country there are excellent hot baths, which cure many diseases.

[1] Now Tebriz in Corcan.—­E.

[2] This must refer to Fars, or Persia proper; as Tebriz is in Persia.—­E.

[3] Perhaps Iracagemi?—­E.

[4] Perhaps Kerman?—­E.

[5] Inexplicably corrupt.—­E.

[6] Timochaim and Arboresecco are inexplicable, perhaps from corrupt
    transcription.  But Timochaim appears to nave been Mekran on the coast
    of the Indian sea, and perhaps reached to the Indus, as observed in a
    former note; and it may have included Sigistan.—­E.

[7] Jasdi is almost certainly Yezd in Fars.  Pinkerton considers Chiaman to
    be Crerina, which is impossible, as that place is afterwards named: 
    Perhaps it may be the province named Timochaim, mentioned in the
    immediately preceding note.—­E.

[8] As the route may be considered as nearly in a straight line south from
    Yesd, Crerina may possibly be the city of Kerrnan, and the cold
    elevated plain, a table land between the top of the Ajuduk mountains
    and a nameless range to the south, towards Gambroon or Ormus.  Adgamad
    being destroyed, cannot now be ascertained, but it must have stood on
    the fine plain above described, and at the bottom of these southern
    mountains.  Reobarle is not to be found In our maps, but must have been
    a name for the province of Ormus.—­E.

[9] There is a series of corruptions or absurdities here:  a Malabar
    government under a Sultan Asiden, or Asi-o-din, situated at Dely,
    conquered by a secret expedition from Turkestan, requires a more
    correct edition of the original of Marco Polo to render intelligible. 
    We can suppose a tribe of Indians or Blacks not far from Gombroon, to
    have been under the rule of a mussel man Sultan, and conquered or
    subverted by a Tartar expedition from Touran, or the north of Persia: 
    But this remains a mere hypothetical explanation.—­E.