'Visit to Lingah, Kishm and Bunder Abbas by Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Pelly, printed article of an account read before the Royal Geographical Society of London 27 Jun 1864' [‎6r] (11/14)

Felly' s Visit to Linc/ah, K 7
able care. For the period it was, doubtless, a first-rate emporium,
but would at present, perhaps, be considered an ordinary oriental
0 r j- nl 0 are 110 traces of any ruins of either great extent or
solidity. Ihe most durable structures seem to have been their
vaulted water-tanks, which of course, in a populous town wholly
dependent on ram-water, were both numerous and of vital import
ance. The statement of Justamond,* that water was hawked about
the streets on camels for the convenience of passengers, shows not
that the town enjoyed an additional luxury, but that a necessary of
lite, which is elsewhere freely used, possessed a market-value in
this utterly desolate island. I find it also difficult to credit that
the thoroughfares tramped by camels were likewise spread with
carpets and linen, ^ since such an arrangement would not at all
suit the habits of those animals. It is more probable that
the old shops of Hormuz, like those of other eastern towns, were
shaded by strips of awnings, with bits of carpets, for the transaction
ot business.
A. local tradition alleges that the island of Uormuz was an
appanage of the old Persian town of Minao, situated on the main
land, on the banks of a fresh-water river, immediately east of
Hormuz. Minao still bears its old name, which is said to be
derived from the words Min and Aub, that is to say, land and
water, par excellence. The fact is, as a merchant of Bunder
Abbass said to me, that mankind settled in the first instance on
fertile land, and by the margin of sweet w T ater \ and wherever you
find these two essentials in the neighbourhood of other ruins, you
may be sure of their claims to the priority of age.
As to the general character of the island of Hormuz, it seems
to be very similar to that of the salt and sulphur formations in the
neighbourhood of Khumeer, already described.
Leaving Hormuz, I sailed across to Bunder Abbass, distant
about 12 miles, in a north-westerly direction. It is a walled
township of about 8000 or 9000 inhabitants, with suburbs,
extending along an open sea-beach, backed at a distance of
about 15 miles, by a range of lofty and apparently desolate
mountains, although the clefts in the middle slopes of this range
produce excellent oranges, t and are said to be otherwise studded
with trees. Behind the present town are some large tombs of
superior construction, but they are falling into ruins. To the
westward lie the debris of an extensive former town, and among
them the ruins of an English factory An East India Company trading post. , which seems to have been in
* Vide Extracts from Justamond and Ealph Filch, p. 30, ' Government Selec
tions/ No. XXIV. of 1856.
f Some of the finest sorts of oranges at Zanzibar are said to be grafts from the
trees in this mountain range.