Page 94 - Arabian Gulf Intellegence

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GRANE AND P1IELEECHI.

GRANE.
Grane (or Koweit) is in general healthy, especially since the last
plague, but no more healthy than the adjacent places in the Persian Gulf.
The cholera was prevalent there at the same time it made its appear-
ance among the Natives of Karrack. They possess few or no vege­
tables, with the exception of onions, the country being perfectly barren:
at times a supply is obtained from Bussora, or from ports on the Persian
Coast. Their fruits consist of water-melons (grown there), dates,
citrons, pomegranates, and marsh-melons, obtained from Bushire and
Bussora.
With regard to the different supplies, and in what quantities procur­
able, they are invariably the same as at Karrack, but more or less
scarce, and vary in price according to the state of the market, as they
are totally dependent on other ports for all kinds of grain: barley
and wheat they procure from Bussora and India ; vice from Manga­
lore ; dholl from Bussora and Bushire; cattle and poultry they procure
from the Bedouins. Their prices also vary much, a sheep on the arrival
of a Kafila or Bedouin horde selling for a dollar, and when scarce (as at
the time I visited the place) for two dollars. Teak plank for boat­
building they generally have a good supply of from Bombay, and
another kind of hard wood, used for knees and timbers, brought from
Muskat. Stones, chunam, &c. for house-building are plentiful, the
latter in abundance, very cheap, and of a superior kind. The harbour
abounds in fish.

PHELEECHI.
After leaving Grane or Koweit, I visited the island of Pheleechi.
Under the directions of a pilot I ventured to take the vessel, then drawing
nine feet water, over the mud-flat (connecting the island and the main)
between the north end of Pheleechi and the low island of Muchaan, at