'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.' [‎347] (378/582)

DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN. 347
cessive heat of summer, to ventilate the houses over which they
are erected. The dwellings are all flat-roofed and terraced, and
mostly built of a light-coloured and friable madrapore, or coral
line ; and as there are no domes or minarets seen among them, and
a total absence of trees, gardens, or verdure, the whole picture is of
a dull, grey, sandy hue, particularly uninviting, and even fatiguing
to the view under a sultry sky : indeed, except when the weather
is sufficiently clear to unveil the mountains of the background, it
possesses no relief; but the only contrast it offers is a change from
the blue surface of a level sea to the yellow plains of a parched
and sandy desert as level as itself.
On landing, the scene is not at all improved: the town is
now found to stand partly on a slight eminence, which is great
est in its centre, and is not more than one hundred feet at
its highest elevation from the sea. From thence it shelves gently
down to the beach on either side, where the houses are literally
built upon the sands. The whole number of dwellings does
not amount to more than fifteen hundred, of which one-third, at
least, are reed enclosures, scarcely deserving even the name of huts,
as most of them are unroofed, and are inhabited by none but
slaves and the very lowest order of the people. The houses are
built chiefly of a friable stone composed of sand and shells im
bedded in clay ; and the best of them are constructed of burnt
bricks brought from Bussorah. The style of architecture is that
which prevails in Arabia generally, with slight additions of the
Persian kind. The buildings are large, square, flat-roofed, laid
out in central courts and small apartments, badly lighted, and
often as badly aired. Excepting the East India Company's fac
tory, the residence of the Governor, and a few good dwellings of
the merchants, particularly the Armenians, there is scarcely one
comfortable, and certainly not one handsome edifice in the place.
The streets are so many narrow alleys, without sufficient height of
wall on either side to shelter the passenger from the sun, the only
advantage that narrow streets possess; and they are totally with-
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