Page 49 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

10 TRAVELS IN OMAN. [CH.

this town may be found in the pages of

Niebuhr, Hamilton, and others, but they
mostly refer to a remote period, and are now,

from the great change which its condition
and commerce have experienced under its

present ruler, scarcely applicable to it. I
shall, therefore, give the result of my own

observation and inquiries at some length.
It would appear that the ancient geogra­

phers * were acquainted at an early period
with the position of Maskatf. It was pro­

bably Moscha, a port of the Hadramitae,
mentioned by Ptolemy : noticed also by

Arrian, in the Periplus of the Erythrean
Sea, as the grand emporium of the trade

between India, Persia, and Arabia. But,
notwithstanding this testimony, Maskat does

not appear to have been a place of very
considerable commercial importance until

the Portuguese took possession of the town
in 1508, and converted it into an interme­

diate port, where their ships might obtain
supplies and refreshments in the passage

between their Indian settlements and that
on the Island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf.

* Geographa, lib. vii. cap. G, p. 153. + Edrissi writes it