Page 171 - Records of Bahrain (1) (i)_Neat

Surveyors and travellers, 1832-1837 161

PERSIAN GULF. 125

not inconsequence care to land there, but made
the best of our way to that island, Bahrain,
which presents the greenest spot in “ Oman’s
green sea.'9 The map which accompanies this
work is taken from the recent elaborate survey
instituted by the East-India Company; it re­
flects the highest honour on the officers engaged
in its construction, and I am proud of having the
happiness of giving in these pages their names.
Until 1704 we had no chart of the Persian Gulf.
Nearcluis was probably amidst the first Euro­
peans who traversed its waters. Benjamin of
Tudela, in 1292, speaks of it; but it was not
until the illustrious Niebuhr visited it that we
possessed a chart. The extraordinary accuracy
of that remarkable man is as conspicuous in this
as it is in the several other branches of human
knowledge to which he turned his attention dur­
ing his stay in the East. Lieut. Macluer, one
of the most correct of modern hydrographers,
and of whom but too little is known, furnished
us with a map and memoir of these interesting-
regions.
After the fall of Ras el Kymah, it was dis­

covered that the pirates had escaped our cruizers
by running into the several ports with which
the Arabian coast is indented, and the liberal
government of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphin-