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CHAPTER XIII, 2-II.
health from it, and it dispels the dryness of the atmosphere.
6. Of the salt seas three are principal, and twentythree are small. 7. Of the three which are principal, one is the Patik, one the Kamrüd, and one the Sahi-bûn. 8. Of all three the Patik' is the largest, in which is a flow and ebb, on the same side as the wide-formed ocean, and it is joined to the wideformed ocean. 9. Amid this wide-formed ocean, on the Patik side, it has a sea which they call the Gulf (var) of Satavês 2. 10. Thick and salt the stench 3 wishes to go from the sea Patik to the wide-formed ocean; with a mighty high wind therefrom, the Gulf of Satavês drives away whatever is stench, and whatever is pure and clean goes into the wideformed ocean and the source Arêdvivsûr; and that flows back a second time to Patik 4. 11. The control of this sea (the Patik) is connected with the
The Av. Paitika of Vend. V, 52, 57, and evidently the Persian Gulf.
? So called from the constellation Satavês ($ 12), see Chap. II, 7. The details given in the text are applicable to the Gulf and Sea of 'Umân, the Arabian Sea of Europeans. The description of this Gulf, given in the Pahl. Vend. V, 57, which is rather obscure, is as follows: 'In purification the impurities flow, in the purity of water, from the sea Patîk into the wide-formed ocean; at the southernmost side the water stands back in mist, and the blue body of Satavês stands back around it. Pätîk stands out from the side of Sataves, this is where it is. From which side it stands is not clear to me. The water comes to Sataves through the bottom; some say that it traverses a fissure.'
* Perhaps a better reading would be stârg sûr-i gôndakîh, the intense saltness which is stench.' The author appears to ha had some vague idea of the monsoon.
* Or, perhaps, the other (the stench) flows back to Patîk.'
* Reading band; but it may be bôd, 'consciousness, sensitiveness.'
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