'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.' [‎400] (431/582)

400
DECLINING STATE OF THE WAHABEES.
lievers by the sword. A hundred facts, of alliance and treaty, as
well as of war and peace, both among themselves and with
strangers, might be cited to prove that their views and their
motives were chiefly temporal; and that, if spiritual reasons were
assigned, it was rather as a cloak for excesses, which nothing
but religious wars have ever yet given rise to, and nothing but a
misguided zeal in a supposed holy cause would ever seek to
justify.
At present the Wahabee power is fast declining ; and Abdal-
lah Ibn Saood, who, but a year or two since, ruled nearly the
whole of Arabia by his signet, is now forsaken by his friends, pur
sued and harassed by his enemies, and contemned and despised by
both. It has been thought here that the Pashas of Bagdad and
of Egypt might at any time have put an end to the war, and
crushed the Wahabee power in an instant; and it is asserted that
they now suffer Ibn Saood to exist, as the pretence of keeping up
a force against him furnishes them with excuses for the delay of
tribute, and for balancing their accounts with Constantinople, by
a display of long arrears of war expenses, which never actually
took place. The Wahabees are reduced to a state, however, in
which they are incapable of doing much injury by land; and it
wants only the extirpation of the Joassamee pirates by sea, to
complete the annihilation of their power. For the execution of
this task, all eyes have long been directed to the English ; and
the inference drawn from their neglect is, either that their trading
interest is promoted by the hindrance thus offered by the pirates
to all native vessels in the Gulf, or that they are afraid of attack
ing them from apprehension of defeat.
This plundering or piratical disposition is so general among
the Arabs of these parts, that during the recent government of
Bussorah by an Arab Sheik, it was really unsafe to pass from the
city to the river by the creek after four o'clock, as boats were
attacked and pillaged in open day, and after sun-set no one stirred
from his own house; while, at any time during this government,