Page 59 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.
A Short Narrative of the Origin of the Kingdom of Hannas,
and of its Kings, down to its Conquest by the Portu­
guese; extracted from its History, written by Tontnxa, 1
King of the same.
Torunxa, King of Harmuz, was pleased to deal, in Persian
prose and verse, with the foundation of that kingdom, and the
doings of the kings, his predecessors. He called his book the
Xa noma, that is, “ the History of the King, or Kings” ; and started
with Adam. But I will abridge, upon a few pages, what he wrote
in no small volume, and relate, with my wonted brevity, the origin
of the kingdom, the number of its kings, their succession in due
order, and as much more touching the same, as may be of most
use, and may not be omitted.
Torunxa gives two very different accounts of the foundation of
that realm of Harmuz, and of the rise of its first king. And
he leaves every reader free to choose that which best may square
with his humour.2
He says,3 then, that there was an Arab prince called Mahamed

1 Teixcira has several forms of this name. Sir Henry Yule, in the
notes and index of his Marco Polo, spells it M Thuran Shah,” and he
is good company to go astray in, if stray we must. [In his article
“ Ormus” in the Encycl. Brit., 9th cd., however, Yule spells the name
“Tiirdn Shah.”—D. K.] But our charts have “Turuinbagh" for
Teixeira’s “ Torunpaque," on the site of the old royal gardens
’i mentioned by Teixcira, and Mr. Cray calls a later prince of this
family, who came to a bad end in Goa, “Turun Shah” {vide his
Pyrard, vol. ii, p. 243, ct scq.).
•2 “ Lo que mas le quadrare.”
3 Cf. what follows with the commencement of the Dominican friar's
version given in Appendix D, infra, which is here much fuller in
detail. In NieuhoPs Travels (ChurchilPs Collection, vol. ii, p. 236,