'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎117] (226/258)

ON THE HYDROGRAPHY OP THE PERSIAN GULP.
117
To those who are engaged in the study of the ancient history of Arabia, it
may not be uninteresting that among the inlets aboufRas Moosendom, on the
Arabian side of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , the largest and most remarkable, from its
sheltered and concealed position, is called the Khaur es Shem (the Bay of
Shem),in which there is also a village and an island called Shem respectively,
added to which, at the further extremity of the bay, there is another village
called Sebee. This bay on the charts goes by the name of Elphinstone’s
Inlet, and is about 12 miles from the cape itself, which is called by Ptolemy
Promontorium Assaborum, or the Promontory of the Sabians, and the moun
tainous ridge of which it is a continuation, the Montes Assaborum. Not far
from this, I was informed by the inhabitants that there were stones up a valley
among the mountains (so well as I could judge about fifteen miles from the
shore), which were covered with written characters. This was at Kasab,
where there is a fort and a fertile valley, with abundance of fresh water ; and
it does not seem to me improbable, that when the trade between India and
the western nations was carried on through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, as
well as through the Straits of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , there was the same kind of
toll placed upon traders here, and taxation of the interchanged goods, as
anciently at Aden. There are also the remains of a fort on Ras Moosendom
itself, which is an island about two miles long ; these remains consist of blocks
of stone, squared with too much care to have been of modern origin, and
therefore might be the remains of a building which anciently served as a watch
tjwer.