'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.' [‎360] (391/582)

360
DESCRIPTION OF BUSSORAH.
The opportunities which this afforded of acquiring much new in
formation, as well as of correcting such as had been previously ob
tained, were not neglected: and I think I may safely say, that no
existing account of the Gulf of Persia generally, and of its chief
ports more especially, will be found to contain more copious or
more accurate information than that which it is my good fortune
to be able to lay before the reader of these pages. The hydro-
graphical observations made in the second voyage, though im
portant to the correct navigation of the Gulf, have been em
bodied in another work, # as being less interesting to the general
reader, and such parts of the journal only retained in this, as
possess the great literary interest of elucidating the early voyage
of Nearchus, in the time of Alexander the Great, when this sea
was for the first time visited by the navigators of antiquity. With
this explanation, I proceed to the account of Bussorah, with its
introductory paragraph, as explanatory of the circumstances under
which it was composed.
After a residence at Bussorah of more than three months,
during which time I made repeated excursions through the town,
and had very frequent intercourse with all classes of the native in
habitants of the place, the following particulars were collected,
and with the impressions to which these gave rise, were faithfully
committed to writing on the spot.
The town of Bussorahf is seated near the western bank of the
combined streams of the Euphrates and Tigris, about fifty miles
below the point of their union at Kourna,^ and seventy above the
point of their discharge into the sea. These two rivers preserve
their respective names of the Fraat and the Dijela, from their
sources to their point of union ; and the stream there formed, is
called the Shat-el-Arab, or river of the Arabs, from this point to
* See Voyage from Muscat to Bushire, and from Bushire to Bussorah, in the Persian
Gulf, published in 'The Oriental Herald' for October and November 1828.
f Xj&J Bussra is the true orthography.
X Kourna, at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, is one of the three Apameas
built by Seleucus, in honour of his first wife, Apamea.