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36 HISTORY OF TDE INDIAN NAVY.
forced to request the assistance of his enemies in subduing the
territory, of which Lahsah, or Lachsa, now known as El
Kateef, near Bahrein, was the capital. In 1552, the Turkish
Government sent from Biissorah an expedition of sixteen
thousand men against the Portuguese, under the command of
Peer Bey, described by Fraser, as " a veteran pirate ;" but
though he took Muscat, after a month's siege, and sacked Kishm,
(Kesm) he was foiled at Ormuz, and had to retire from the fort,
after plundering the town.
During Albuquerque's tenure of power he received, at
Ormuz, an embassy from Ismael, the founder of the Soph!
dynasty in Persia ; and here, when in his sixtieth year, he was
seized with the illness which carried him off, when within sight
of Goa, though his biographers attribute his death chiefly to
mortification on receiving notice of his supersession in the
viceroyalty by his mortal enemy, and a denial from his sovereign
of the title of Duke of Goa, which he had solicited. Albu-
querque died on board his ship off the city he had captured,
which the Portuguese still retain as the capital of their Indian
possessions.
For upwards of one hundred years the Portuguese trade with
Bussorah, and the ports of the Persian Gulf, flowed through
Ormuz; but the year 1622 was destined to see the extinction
of their power and commercial greatness in this inland sea, for
there was no officer of the genius of Albuquerque to uphold the
flag, and the sun of a race, rivalling his in maritime greatness,
was rising in the East.
The succession of the native kings, whose power soon
became quite nominal, was preserved during the Portuguese
occupation of the island, but they were forced to take the oath
of fidelity to the King of Portugal, and could not quit the
island without the consent of the governor. The commerce and
importance of Ormuz, commenced to decline from the date
of its conquest by Albuquerque, chiefly owing to the rapacity
of its rulers. Notwithstanding this decadence in its prosperity,
Shah Abbas, King of Persia, saw with envy the opulence of
Ormuz. He could not understand the source from whence it
was derived, and looked to its conquest as an event that would
add both to the glory and wealth of his country. Emaum Kooli
Khan, Governor of Fars, called, in the accounts, Prince of Shiraz,
received orders to undertake this great enterprise; but the King
was well aware that it would be impossible to succeed without
the aid of a naval force. The Company's agents at Surat were
accordingly applied to, and consented to co-operate on the
plain between the hills and the sea, you see a country seat of the old Kings of
Ormuz, adorned with groves of palm trees and two large cisterns for water.'
The ruins of buildings and of water channels for irrigation are to be seen here,
which is the only point in the hilly part of the island where stratified rocks are
found and which is free from the all-pervading salt deposits."