new
nothing about, but the sulphate of zinc is found in the hills to the east
of Kubenan."

Heyd (_Com._ II. p. 675) says in a note: "Il resulte de l'ensemble de ce
passage que les matieres designees par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie'
(spodium) etaient des scories metalliques; en general, le mot spodium
designe les residus de la combustion des matieres vegetales ou des os (de
l'ivoire)."--H. C.]

CHAPTER XXII.

OF A CERTAIN DESERT THAT CONTINUES FOR EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY.

When you depart from this City of Cobinan, you find yourself again in a
Desert of surpassing aridity, which lasts for some eight days; here are
neither fruits nor trees to be seen, and what water there is is bitter and
bad, so that you have to carry both food and water. The cattle must needs
drink the bad water, will they nill they, because of their great thirst.
At the end of those eight days you arrive at a Province which is called
TONOCAIN. It has a good many towns and villages, and forms the extremity
of Persia towards the North.[NOTE 1] It also contains an immense plain on
which is found the ARBRE SOL, which we Christians call the _Arbre Sec_;
and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having
the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough
husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is
yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor
within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where you find trees
within about ten miles' distance. And there, the people of the country
tell you, was fought the battle between Alexander and King Darius.[NOTE 2]

The towns and villages have great abundance of everything good, for the
climate is extremely temperate, being neither very hot nor very cold. The
natives all worship Mahommet, and are a very fine-looking people,
especially the women, who are surpassingly beautiful.

NOTE 1.--All that region has been described as "a country divided into
deserts that are salt, and deserts that are not salt." (_Vigne_, I. 16.)
_Tonocain_, as we have seen (ch. xv. note 1), is the Eastern Kuhistan of
Persia, but extended by Polo, it would seem to include the whole of
Persian Khorasan. No city in particular is indicated as visited by the
traveller, but the view I take of the position of the _Arbre Sec_, as well
as his route through Kuh-Banan, would lead me to suppose that he reached
the Province of TUN-O-KAIN abo