NOTE 2.—Polo is here either speaking without personal knowledge, or is so brief as to convey an erroneous impression that the Tigris flows to Kisi, whereas three-fourths of the length of the Persian Gulf intervene between the river mouth and Kisi. The latter is the island and city of KISH or KAIS, about 200 miles from the mouth of the Gulf, and for a long time one of the chief ports of trade with India and the East. The island, the _Cataea_ of Arrian, now called Ghes or Kenn, is singular among the islands of the Gulf as being wooded and well supplied with fresh water. The ruins of a city [called Harira, according to Lord Curzon,] exist on the north side. According to Wassáf, the island derived its name from one Kais, the son of a poor widow of Síráf (then a great port of Indian trade on the northern shore of the Gulf), who on a voyage to India, about the 10th century, made a fortune precisely as Dick Whittington did. The proceeds of the cat were invested in an establishment on this island. Modern attempts to nationalise Whittington may surely be given up! It is one of the tales which, like Tell’s shot, the dog Gellert, and many others, are common to many regions. (_Hammer’s Ilch._ I. 239; _Ouseley’s Travels_, I. 170; _Notes and Queries_, 2nd s. XI. 372.) Mr. Badger, in a postscript to his translation of the History of Omán (_Hak. Soc._ 1871), maintains that Kish or Kais was at this time a city on the mainland, and identical from Síráf. He refers to Ibn Batuta (II. 244), who certainly does speak of visiting “the city of Kais, called also Síráf.” And Polo, neither here nor in Bk. III. ch. xl., speaks of Kisi as an island. I am inclined, however, to think that this was from not having visited it. Ibn Batuta says nothing of Síráf as a seat of trade; but the historian Wassáf, who had been in the service of Jamáluddín al-Thaibi, the Lord of Kais, in speaking of the export of horses thence to India, calls it “the _Island_ of Kais.” (Elliot, III. 34.) Compare allusions to this horse trade in ch. xv. and in Bk. III. ch. xvii. Wassáf was precisely a contemporary of Polo. NOTE 3.—The name is _Bascra_ in the MSS., but this is almost certainly the common error of _c_ for _t_. BASRA is still noted for its vast date-groves. “The whole country from the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris to the sea, a distance of 30 leagues, is covered with these trees.” (_Tav._ Bk. II. ch. iii.)