"On Tubaran," says Idrisi, "are dependent Mahyak, Kir Kaian, Sura" (? Suza), "Fardan" (? Bampur or Pahra), "Kashran" (? Khasrin), "and Masurjan. Masurjan is a well-peopled commercial town surrounded with villages on the banks of the Tubaran, from which town it is 42 miles distant. Masurjan to Darak Yamuna 141 miles, Darak Yamuna to Firabuz 175 miles." If we take Regan to represent the old city of Masurjan, and Yakmina as the modern representative of Darak Yamuna, we shall find Idrisi's distances most surprisingly in accordance with modern mapping. Regan is about 40 miles from Fahraj, and the other distances, though not accurate of course, are much more approximately correct than could possibly have been expected from the generality of Idrisi's compilation. I cannot, however, now open up a fresh chapter on mediæval geography in Persia. It is Makran itself to which I wish to draw attention. In our thirst for trans-frontier knowledge farther north and farther west, we have somewhat overlooked this very remarkable country. Idrisi commences his description with the assertion that "Makran is a vast country, mostly desert." We have not altogether found it so. It is true that the voyager who might be condemned to coast his way from the Gulf of Oman to the port of Karachi in the hot weather, might wonder what of beauty, wealth, or even interest, could possibly lie beyond that brazen coast washed by that molten sea; might well recall the agonies of thirst endured during the Greek retreat; might think of the lost armies of Cyrus and Simiramis; and whilst his eye could not fail to be impressed with the grand outlines of those bold headlands which guard the coast, his nose would be far more rudely reminded of the unpleasant proximity of Ichthyophagi than delighted by soft odours of spikenard or myrrh. And yet, for century after century, the key to the golden gate of Indian commerce lay behind those Makran hills. Beyond those square-headed bluffs and precipices, hidden amongst the serrated lines of jagged ridges, was the high-road to wealth and fame, where passed along not only many a rich khafila loaded with precious merchandise, but many a stout array of troops besides. Those citizens of Makran who "loved fair dealing, who were men of their word, and enemies to fraud," who welcomed the lagging khafila, or sped on their way the swift camel-mounted soldiers of Arabia, could have little dreamed that for centuries in the undeveloped future, when trade should pass over the high seas round the southern coast of Africa, and the Western infidel should set his hated foot on Eastern shores, Makran should sink out of sight and into such forgetfulness by the world, that eventually this ancient land of the sun should become something less well known than those mountains of the moon in which lay the far-off sources of the Egyptian Nile.