'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎356] (387/582)

356
THE PIRATE RAHMAH-BEN-JABER.
vessels, were formerly able to anchor close up to the north-east side
of the town, within the inner harbour ; but the channel leading
up to this will now scarcely admit of small dows, except they are
lightened. There are anchorage-births for native boats behind
some small islands, to the north-east extremity of the inner
harbour, or in the deepest part of the bight which it forms. This
was at present occupied by the fleet of a certain Arab, named
Rahmah-ben-Jaber, who has been for more than twenty years the
terror of the Gulf, and who is the most successful and the most
generally tolerated pirate, perhaps, that ever infested any sea.
This man is by birth a native of Graine, on the opposite coast,
and nephew of the present governor, or Sheikh, of that place. His
fellow-citizens have all the honesty, however, to declare him an
outlaw, from abhorrence of his profession ; and he has found that
shelter and protection at Bushire, which his own townsmen very
properly denied to him. With five or six vessels, most of which
are very large, and manned by crews of from two to three hundred
each, he sallies forth, and captures whatever he may think himself
strong enough to carry off as his prize;—the vessels of Graine, of
Bussorah, of Bahrein, of Muscat, and even of Bushire, where he
resides, falling equally a prey to him. His followers, to the num
ber perhaps of two thousand, are maintained by the plunder of his
prizes; and as these are most of them his own bought African
slaves, and the remainder equally subject to his authority, he is
sometimes as prodigal of their lives in a fit of anger, as he is of
those of his enemies, whom he is not content to slay in battle only,
but basely murders in cold blood, after they have submitted. An
instance is related of his having recently put a great number of
his own crew, who used mutinous expressions, into a tank on
board, in which they usually kept their water, and this being shut
close at the top, the poor wretches were all suffocated, and after
wards thrown overboard. This butcher chief, like the celebrated
Djezzar of Acre, affects great simplicity of dress, manners, and
living; and whenever he goes out, he is not to be distinguished