'Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government' [‎577] (621/733)

GULF OF PERSIA.
577
in four or four and a half fathoms until you deepen into five or six
fathoms, when you may continue to haul up, as you deepen your
water, for Rassul, which pass at a distance of half a mile. If working,
you may stand close over to the main, there being from four to seven
fathoms within a few hundred yards of the beach, and four fathoms
towards Pheleechi, after passing Rassul ; and do not approach nearer
than seven fathoms on the Grane side, and work to four on the opposite.
In passing Ras Toosa (which forms the low point near the town), do
not approach nearer than a mile and a half; when past it, haul in a little
towards the town, and anchor off it in any depth from seven to ten
fathoms.
M uchan I sland,
Muchan island is a small dry sandbank, between Pheleechi and the
main.
P heleechi I sland. #
The town of Pheleechi is in lat. 19° 26' 25" N., long. 48° 15' 50" E.
The island is eighteen miles round, low, and surrounded by a mud flat,
running off for a considerable distance, but shoals regularly in approach
ing it. Tolerable water is procured here, also a few sheep, fish, and
poultry. It has about four or five hundred inhabitants, who are mostly
fishermen, and are subject to the Shaikh of Grane, one of whose relations
is Shaikh or governor. The western point of the entrance to the river
Euphrates is in lat. 29° 55' 40" N., long. 48° 27' 18" E. It is very
low, and scarcely discernible beyond three or four miles. It is
nearly surrounded by a mud flat, running off to the southward for six or
seven miles, nearly dry at low-water. The ground is clammy, and
covered in most seasons with short grass and rushes, and is inhabited
by straggling parties of Arabs, who reside about there principally for
the sake of pasture for their cattle.
On the Euphrates side of the point the water appears to be rather
gaining on the land, but on the side towards Khore Abdoolla the land
appears to gain upon the sea; and from the information I have received
from the pilots, and other intelligent natives, the mud flat on this side
has extended considerably of late years, so that in a few years more
what is now a mud flat, covered at spring tides, will probably be firm
ground. The increase of the land on the side of Khore Abdoolla is also
much greater than the loss on the side of the river. This remark, from
all the information I have been able to obtain, applies equally to the
opposite bank of the river, where the land is gaining ground. Khore
Abofalla is nearly separated from the Euphrates by the above point,
and when laying in one you may, from the top, see the masts of the
vessels plainly in the other. The Khore is navigable to Woorba Island,
* Vide also report on this island by Lieutenant J. Felix Jones, I. N v at pages 52 to 54
of this Selection.