Page 101 - Journal of Asian History_Neat

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244 SALlH OZ13ARAN

«After all that I have written above to His Highness (V. A.) there came
to me a letter from the guazi7 of Bahreyn, in which he wrote that the
Turks had already come to Katif and besieged it. [The letter] says that
they came from Basra in fourfustas, and does not estimate them at more
than two hundred» 9. The fresher news thathc had from Bahreyn revealed,
however, that «Katif was already taken by the Turks...• [the guaz.il of
i
: Katif] delivered the keys of the fortress without any fight or resistance
•.
...Dom Francisco arrived at the harbour after it had been taken, already
ten-twelve days. Since he found it taken he wanted to do as much da­
mage as he could; he burnt all the ships which the Turks had at the har­ {
bour, loaded with goods» l0. During the close fight, however, many Por­
tuguese were killed and D. Francisco returned to Flormuz wounded.
About the Basra-Hormuz trade and the Ottoman interest in it D.
;
Alvaro writes: «They [i.c., the Ottomans at Basra] sent many letters !
here to Dom Manuel; and since my arrival, there has come another
letter from the Turk, which [D. Manuel] has already sent to His High­
ness, in which he [i.e., the Turk] was intending that this trade should
remain open; and for that he was giving great assurances» ll. It is
known that D. Manuel gave no response to this demand. The Por­ ;
tuguese policy was still the same in the time of D. Alvaro although he
himself highly esdmated the profit from the trade to Basra I2.

9 See below, letter I, fol.8a.
10 See below, letter I, fol.lOa. In a letter dated 24 November 1550, one day
earlier than that of D.Alvaro, Thome Serrao, ouvidor (i.c., crown-judge) at Hormuz
wrote to his King that the Turks went to Katif with 200 men in six fustas and with
500 men on land (see As Gavetas da Torre do Tombo, vol. V (Lisboa 1965), pp. 38-40.
11 See below, letter I, fol.9a. For the amicable approach that the Ottomans
made, in 1547, through Bilal Mchmed Pasha, the first beylcrbeyx of Basra, see Ozbaran,
op. cit., pp. 71-79.
12 In his above-mentioned letter Thom6 Serrao writes this: «Pcro viso rci Dom
Jolodc Castro que Dcos tem cstava defesa que nenhua pcssoa dc qualqucr nasam sob
graves penas c fiquarcra cavitos nao fosem a Ba9ora. E agora pero governador Jorge
Cabral foy confirmado o mesmo decraramdo que nao fosem ncm vies cm per nenhua
mancira ncm pera la mandasem fazemdas ncm as trouxesem». This is not, however, to
suggest that the route to Basra remained blockaded. Father Caspar Barzeu, who visited
Hormuz in 1550, wrote from Goa that Hormuz was a great trading town for ail the mcr
eh an disc coming from Persia, Arabia, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Venice: «H 6 grande es-
calla dc todas as mcrcadorias assi de Percia como d’Arabia, Turquia, Mizopotamia,\Ve-
i
niza e da casa dc Mcca c assi Tartaria Maior como Menor. Vcrdadciraracnte, se algu-

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