Page 73 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

BUNDER ABBAS—KARRACK. 31

having under him a convenient number of soldiers, whereof some part
remain in the castle, and some in the town. In this town are merchants
of all nations, and many Moors and Gentiles. There is a very great
trade of all sorts of spices, drugs, silk, cloth of silk, fine tapestry of
Persia, great store of pearls, which come from the isle of Bahrein, and
are the best pearls of all others, and many horses of Persia, which serve
all India.”

BUNDER ABBAS.
The English, in their destruction of the Portuguese power in the
Gulf, in conjunction with the armies of Persia, in a. d. 1622, retired to
Bunder Abbas, and forced the trade with them from its favourite retreat
to a point characterised thus unfavourably by the same author :—
Three or four leagues from Ormus there was, upon the continent,
an harbour called Gombroon, or Bunder Abbas. Nature seemed not to
have designed it should be inhabited. It is situated at the foot of a
ridge of mountains of an excessive height; the air you breathe seems
to be on fire ; mortal vapours continually exhale from the bowels of the
earth; the fields are black and dry, as if they had been scorched with
fire. Notwithstanding these inconveniences, as Bunder Abbas had
the advantage of being placed at the entrance of the Gulf, the Persian
Monarch chose to make it the centre of the extensive trade he intended
to carry on with India. The English joined in this project. A per­
petual exemption from all imposts, and a moiety of the product of the
customs, were granted them, on condition that they should maintain at
least two men-of-war in the Gulf. This precaution was thought neces­
sary, to frustrate the attempts of the Portuguese, whose resentment was
still to be dreaded.”
From this time Bunder Abbas, which was before a poor fishing town,
became a flourishing city. Bunder Abbas is situated nearly north from
the town of Kishm, from which it is from four to five leagues distant :
it is now farmed of the Persian Monarch by the Imaum of Muskat, who
keeps an armed force in the town.

ISLAND OF KARRACK.
The Dutch in a. d. 1748, having been plundered at Bussora by the local
Government, whither the trade had been carried from Bunder Abbas
by the European factors, during the Afghan invasion of Persia, retired
to the island of Karrack, on which they planted an establishment, which