of the beauty of the plain.
We have the same change in the old _Mafomet_ for Mahomet, and the converse
one in the Spanish _hermosa_ for _formosa_. Teixeira's Chronicle says that
the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa Mahamed Dranku, i.e. Shah Mahomed
Dirhem-Ko, in "a plain of the same name."

The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt
not, an interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber.

When the ships of Nearchus launched again from the mouth of the Anamis,
their first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island
to another which was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called
_Organa_; the large one by which they anchored _Oaracta_. (_Indica_, 37.)
Neither name is quite lost; the latter greater island is Kishm or
_Brakht_; the former _Jerun_,[2] perhaps in old Persian _Gerun_ or
_Geran_, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for
three centuries the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth
and splendour. An Eastern saying ran, "Were the world a ring, Hormuz would
be the jewel in it."

["The _Yuean shi_ mentions several seaports of the Indian Ocean as carrying
on trade with China; Hormuz is not spoken of there. I may, however, quote
from the Yuean History a curious statement which perhaps refers to this
port. In ch. cxxiii., biography of Arsz-lan, it is recorded that his
grandson Hurdutai, by order of Kubilai Khan, accompanied _Bu-lo no-yen_ on
his mission to the country of _Ha-rh-ma-sz_. This latter name may be
intended for Hormuz. I do not think that by the Noyen _Bulo_, M. Polo
could be meant, for the title Noyen would hardly have been applied to him.
But Rashid-eddin mentions a distinguished Mongol, by name _Pulad_, with
whom he was acquainted in Persia, and who furnished him with much
information regarding the history of the Mongols. This may be the _Bu-lo
no-yen_ of the Yuean History." (Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ II. p. 132.)--H.
C.]

NOTE 2.--A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind,
and some places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and
Dioscorides, according to Kaempfer, who says it was in his time made under
the name of a medicinal stomachic; the rich added _Radix Chinae_,
ambergris, and aromatic spices; the poor, liquorice and Persian absinth.
(_Sir B. Frere_; _Amoen. Exot._ 750; _Macd. Kinneir_, 220.)

["The _date_ wine with spices is not now made at Bender 'Abbas. Date
arrack, howe