The Rashīdī History 9.4.2

9.4.2

the few modern travellers who have visited it having furnished only a meagre description of it. A Chinese author of the last century says that the whole population of the province, in his time, could be estimated at no more than 3000 families, and these were, for the greater part, so poor that they were scarcely able to provide for themselves. In the summer the heat was excessive, and the blaze of the sun on the barren ridges in the neighbourhood of the town, insupportable—wherefore the people had named them "the fire mountains."