Page 43 - Journal of Asian History_Neat

5 63
i TU R VND FORTL’OWKSK IN THF. PERSIAN HULK
)
\ Afirr his arriviil at %juc7., Pin Hois, who had boon a notable Ottoman
Heographer and cartographer as well as one of the most famous of
'Turkish seamen, was arraigned for his lack of success in the Persian
Gulf and was beheaded in 1553.6S
This episode was in no way the end of the Ottoman attempt to gain
y
control of the Persian Gulf. Their effort to possess the eastern shore of
N*
$ Arabia, to win the island of Bahrayn and to keep open the strait of
Hormuz was now to become more sustained than it had ever been before.
& Success would depend on Ottoman land forces in Basra and in the
I Lahsa district and on Ottoman naval facilities in the arsenal of Basra

rather than on tho Suez fleet which had been left by Piri Reis at Basra.
There was now a considerable fear that the Portuguese might take
reprisals for tho harm which the operation of Piri Reis had caused
i
i them. In fact, the Portuguese fleet under Pero de Taide Inferno was
'
i patrolling in the Red Sea area.64 The Sultan therefore lost no time in
?•
appointing a new captain to bring back to Suez the Ottoman vessels
still at Basra. However, the attempt of the new kapudan, Murad Reis,
\ to bring back fifteen galleys, one galleon and one other vessel to Suez
\ was unsuccessful. The Portuguese had all the information about his
;
journey from a captured lerratiquim47 with its crew of Mauros.fi8 The
Portuguese with their naval commander, D. Diogo de Noronha, en­
countered the Ottoman fleet in the strait of Hormuz near the Persian
r;
coast. During the battle the Ottomans received considerable damage
and Murad Reis therefore decided to sail back to Basra.6* In spite of
this setback the Sultan still wanted to have the fleet brought back to
« Suez. SeycLi Ali Reis, the well known Turkish geographer, was now
l
r appointed to undertake the same operation. He set sail from Basra on
2 July 1554 with his fifteen ships, having been informed that the
fc. Portuguese had only four ships in the Persian Gulf. The Portuguese,
with their fleet commander, D. Fernando de Menezes, then at Muscat,

U again obtained information from some terradas70 that Seydi Ali was

•s Seydi Ali Reis, Miraiul Memalik, (Istanbul, 1895), p. 13; Pe9evi, Tarih,
p. 352; Couto, JDec. VI, Liv. X, p. 468.
•• Couto, p. 485.
•7 Ttrranquim, i.e., a small oared ship having sails aiso-it was much used
in India (Leitao and Lopez, op.cit., p. 385).
41 Mouros—here to bo understood no doubt as Arabs from the Shatt al-Arab
area of Iraq.
° Seydi Ali Reis, Mir at, p. 13; Couto, pp. 487-494.
70 Terrada, i.e., a kind of ship that was much used in the Persian Gulf and in
the Red Soa (Leit&o and Lopoz, p. 385). Tho word Urrada is derived from Arabic

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