'Military Report on South-West Persia, Including the Provinces of Khuzistan (Arabistan), Luristan, and Part of Fars' [‎62] (95/466)

6£
collecting rain-water. This reservoir is open only during tlie months of April
and May, which period is coincident with the annual advent of g u i nea ,
worm; but I shall have to animadvert on this subject further on when
treating of the most pr valent [diseases. The watei so stipplied is usGdby
the natives for all purposes. But the chief supply of potable water is
carried in mussacks from two wells-—the one at -Bahmani, the otlier at
Bao 'h-i-Mula, respectively six and five miles distant from the town. This
water, especially that of Bahmani, is only very slightly, if at all, brackish,
but contains, nevertheless, abundance of chlorides, exhibiting a dense white
cloud, and the addition of even a weak solution of silver nitrate. Still I believe
it would come under the head of matile water in Dr Parkes' classification, as
its chlorides are chiefly sodic; and though it perhaps causes griping, and more
or less intestinal disturbance during the first month of its use, it is not in the
long run, so far as I am aware, detrimental to health.
The surface soil of the Bushire Peninsula generally is loose and sandy,
and, when well irrigated, not unproductive; but inter-
Vicinity. yening between the city and the cultivated land is a
low, level, moist, barren, leafless plain, a mere trifle above sea-level on the one
side, and daily more or less inundated on the other. The surface of this space,
which covers an area of about one square mile, presents here and there,
during wet weather, large shallow pools of water, which usually take a few
days'' drought to evaporate, and the plain is then so muddy almost to its entire
extent as to render locomotion on foot dilficult and unpleasant, and even on
horseback disagreeable.
The first two hundred yards or so of this plain from the city gate being
near the barracks is the place generally resorted to as a necessary by the Per
sian troops, and is consequently pretty well covered with ordure, with whichis
occasionally interspersed the dead bodies of donkeys, mules, horses, dogs, and
others animals that may have recently paid the debt of nature. But 1 shall
again refer to this circumstance in considering the causes to which 1 ascribe
the prevalence of the sickness that invariably heads the list of diseases met with
at the Bushire Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. Dispensary (see foot note ante) .
The subsoil for the first 20 feet or so is composed of very porous con-
glomerate rock, a prominent ingredient of which is a
Soil and subsoil. quantity of small shells. Beneath this is found a thick
bed of firm moist clay. This soil, both subsoil and surface, is, by the way,
exactly what is found in districts where malarious fever is endemic, and may
be the chief factor in generating the poison that seems always to lurk about
Bushire.
Strange it would at first appear, yet it is no less true, that Bushire, in spite
of the abovementioned unfavourable circumstances, can-
Healthily situated. ^ ca j} e( ^ very unhealthy. An explanation of this
seems to be found in its singularly good natural position, and the fact or the
prevailing wind coming from the north-west, whence, crossing the 1
strikes right on the city situated almost insularly at the extremity ot a
peninsula ; and the breeze thus enriched with ozone, tempered by moistuie,
and deprived by oxidation of most, if not all, of the deleterious organic su ■
stances, vegetable and animal, which it may have previously contained, neu
tralizes in turn, rendering comparatively innocuous the otherwise injurious einan
ations from the innumerable dust-bins, sewage-pits, and cess-pools of Bus ire-
Sickness, chiefly malarious fever, is increased during the south, and par
cularly during the south-east winds, doubtless owing to the malaria Dein 0