Page 14 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat
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INTRODUCTION. X XI
XX INTRODUCTION.
place the ship took a westerly course, and, after being
February 9th, 1604, therefore, he left Goa, and on the nth
nearly stranded in a shallow channel by the Moorish pilot •i
embarked on a Portuguese ship bound for the Persian
who had been taken on board at Kharag, at length cast
Gulf. Sailing the same day, the ship took a straight '
anchor on August 1st in the Shat-el-Arab, and on the 6th • u
course for the coast of Arabia, making landfall on
reached the terminus of her voyage at “ Serrage,” where 1.
March 2nd, near the Bay of Masfrah ; thence running i !• Vi
ships of burden were wont to discharge their cargoes for m
northwards, she rounded Cape Ras-el-Had, and entered the *-
Basra. To this town our traveller proceeded the same day
Gulf of Omdn. Here many vessels were sighted, and in a a
by boat along a canal. fe .
collision with one of these the arrogant folly of a ship’s
Of Basra, as he saw it, Teixeira gives a graphic and 'S- y
clerk nearly caused a terrible disaster. Escaping from this < r-
interesting description. In this town he lodged in the house if.
danger, the ship pursued her course, anchoring a couple of
of a Venetian merchant,1 in whose company and that of
days at Si'fa, taking in wood and water at Mdskat, and at
two Portuguese gentlemen our traveller had come from
length reaching Hormuz on March 17th. ft
Hormuz, all having apparently arranged to journey to
On April 14th Teixeira set sail for Basra, in a little ship
Europe together. But finding that the river would be un- it
!|
belonging to the Portuguese captain of Hormuz, which,
navigable for some months, Teixeira, learning that a kafila
after passing through the strait between Kishm and the
mainland, coasted north-westerly along the eastern shore was fitted out to make the land journey through the Arabian
desert, resolved to join it. Accordingly, on September 2nd,
of the Persian Gulf, having frequently to cast anchor
he and Diego de Melo, one of the aforesaid Portuguese
owing to the strong currents. Off the island of Ldr
gentlemen (who had, at the last moment, begged permis
(Shaikh Shuwaib) the ship suffered somewhat from bad
sion to accompany our traveller), bade farewell to their
weather, and proved a friend in need to a native vessel
friends in Basra, and proceeded to the plain outside the
that had been attacked by “Nihhelus.” After sailing r •*.
town, whence the kafila was to start2
along this rugged coast for thirty-five days, provisions
began to fail, and on reaching Shilu the head-wind in
Ev.
creased to such an extent that the captain of the ship 1 Regarding this man, Santo Fonte, Father Antonio Gouvca, in his
gave orders to set the course for Hormuz, at which Relacam, etc., Liv. I, cap. vii, relates an incident, showing how severely
Shdh Abbds punished the King of Ldr and his accomplices for the
place our traveller found himself back again on May murder and robbery of a factor of this Venetian merchant’s.
21 st. 2 It was not customary, I believe, for Europeans to travel by this :
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.
Disappointed but not daunted by his ill-success, Teixeira desert route. Antonio Tenreiro was the first Portuguese to undertake V:
the journey in 1523, and again in 1528 ; and Couto {Dec. TV, Liv. v,
once more embarked in the same ship, which, having cap. vii) describes the sensation caused in Portugal by the narrative
of his adventures (which was not printed, however, before 1560, at
refitted and revictualled, sailed from Hormuz on June 17th,
Coimbra). Some forty years later (in 1565 apparently), a certain
this time keeping south of Kishm island. This voyage Antonio Teixeira made the journey from Basra to Bagdad, and
thence to the Mediterranean and Galata (Couto, Dec. VIII, cap. v). ..
proved more fortunate, and, after apparently an unin Fr. Gaspar de Sao Bernardino, who made the land journey from
terrupted run along the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf, Basra to Aleppo a few years after Teixeira, took a somewhat
different route. On the subject of these land journeys sec the
the ship anchored on July 25th at the island of Kharag, interesting account in Whiteway’s Rise of Portuguese Power ui India ,
where it lay wind-bound for four days. Leaving this PP- 53-57-
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