[General Houtum-Schindler says (l.c. p. 496):  “Marco Polo’s return journey was, I am inclined to think, via Urzu and Baft, the shortest and most direct road.  The road via Tarum and Sirjan is very seldom taken by travellers intending to go to Kerman; it is only frequented by the caravans going between Bender ’Abbas and Bahramabad, three stages west of Kerman.  Hot springs, ‘curing itch,’ I noticed at two places on the Urzu-Baft road.  There were some near Qal’ah Asgber and others near Dashtab; they were frequented by people suffering from skin-diseases, and were highly sulphureous; the water of those near Dashtab turned a silver ring black after two hours’ immersion.  Another reason of my advocating the Urzu road is that the bitter bread spoken of by Marco Polo is only found on it, viz. at Baft and in Bardshir.  In Sirjan, to the west, and on the roads to the east, the bread is sweet.  The bitter taste is from the Khur, a bitter leguminous plant, which grows among the wheat, and whose grains the people are too lazy to pick out.  There is not a single oak between Bender ’Abbas and Kerman; none of the inhabitants seemed to know what an acorn was.  A person at Baft, who had once gone to Kerbela via Kermanshah and Baghdad, recognised my sketch of tree and fruit immediately, having seen oak and acorn between Kermanshah and Qasr-i-Shirin on the Baghdad road.”  Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.):  “The above description undoubtedly refers to the main winter route, which runs via Sirjan.  This is demonstrated by the fact that under the Kuh-i-Ginao, the summer station of Bandar Abbas, there is a magnificent sulphur spring, which, welling from an orifice 4 feet in diameter, forms a stream some 30 yards wide.  Its temperature at the source is 113 degrees, and its therapeutic properties are highly appreciated.  As to the bitterness of the bread, it is suggested in the notes that it was caused by being mixed with acorns, but, to-day at any rate, there are no oak forests in this part of Persia, and I would urge that it is better to accept our traveller’s statement, that it was due to the bitterness of the water.”—­However, I prefer Gen. Houtum-Schindler’s theory.—­H.  C.]

[1] It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger
    and Blochmann have considered the original suggestion lawful and
    probable.  Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter:  “After studying a
    language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything
    un-idiomatic; but I must confess I see nothing un-Persian in
    rudbar-i-duzd, nor in rudbar-i-lass....  How common lass is, you
    may see from one fact, that it occurs in children’s reading-books.”  We
    must not take Reobarles in Marco’s French as rhyming to (French)
    Charles; every syllable sounds.  It is remarkable that Las, as the
    name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, “in the
    language of the country,” a level plain. (J.  A. S. B. VIII. 195.)
    It is not clear what is meant by the language of the country.  The
    chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Biluchis, who are,
    according to Tod, of Jat descent.