'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.' [‎436] (467/582)

436
VOYAGE FROM BUSHIRE,
tions in the Persepolitan character. Among the ruins of the city
are said to be two exceedingly deep wells, and stables sufficient
to contain a hundred horses, excavated from the solid rock.
The weather continued light, and the winds variable from
the eastward; our progress still slow, and our water deepening
gradually to forty fathoms at midnight.
It is in this bay that Rangoon is situated ; and both the name,
the relative position, and the local features of the place, as far as
we could collect them from the information of those whom we
consulted, all agree accurately with those of Gogana, one of the
stations at which the fleet of Nearchus anchored, and placed by
Arrian at the mouth of a winter torrent called Areon. " The
place," he says, " was not without inhabitants, but the anchorage
unsafe, on account of the shoals and breakers which appeared on
the ebb of the tide, and the approach was narrow and danger
ous/'* A winter brook is not, however, to be found always in the
same spot at any distance of time; and, accordingly, we could
learn nothing of a stream now existing at Rangoon, sufficiently
large to deserve notice; although, as the natives said, whenever
it rained hard at this place, the rain formed torrents, as it did
every where else in the world; and they wondered that we should
enquire after this as a singularity, or peculiar to Rangoon alone,
for so they understood the drift of our enquiries. We subsequently
learnt that there was a stream of fresh water which descended
from the mountains above Rangoon; but it was added, that this
did not discharge itself into the sea, being exhausted among the
date-grounds before it reached the shore. On this stream, at
about two hours from the town, a water-mill once stood, at which
the people of the country had their corn ground; and a well is
mentioned, not far off, having thirty-three yards of water in it,
and sending up a bubbling spring above its brink in certain sea
sons of the year. In the time of Alexander, therefore, a winter
torrent may easily be supposed to have discharged itself into the
* Arrian's Voyage of Nearchus, .38.