'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.' [‎376] (407/582)

INHABITANTS OF BUSSORAH.
existed here. There were formerly several friars of that order
attached to the Convent as missionaries; and until within these
few years, always two of them. At present, however, there is hut
one, who is an old Neapolitan of about sixty, and has been here
altogether nearly thirty years, having visited Europe once only
in that interval. He is one of the most uninformed members of
his order that I remember to have met with, and after so long
a residence in the country can scarcely speak the language of it
intelligibly. His solitude was so insupportable when he lost his
last companion, that he became a most abandoned drunkard in
endeavouring to cheer it by the bottle. So scandalous was his
behaviour during the period of constant inebriation, that his
flock bound him by the most solemn oaths made at the altar,
never to taste the alluring poison again. To this he rigidly con
forms ; but it costs him, according to his own confession, the sacri
fice of the only consolation which he enjoyed on this side the
grave!
The Subbees are a sect of Christians, who call themselves
disciples and followers of John the Baptist, and their community
consists of about thirty families. They dress so exactly like the
Arabs of the place, that there is no means of discovering them by
their exterior, and their language and general manners are also
the same with those of the Mohammedan inhabitants of the town.
The chief seat of these Subbees is Kourna, at the conflux of
the Tigris and Euphrates ; and at that place their Bishop, and
upwards of a hundred families reside. There are also some few
at Shookashoaah, a large Arab town higher up, and they are
scattered over the plain country of Khusistan, at Shooster, Dezh-
pool, and other places there ; but their limits are very narrow, and
their whole body collectively is thought to be less than a thousand
families. They possess a Gospel of their own, which is written
in a dialect of the Chaldaic, but with characters peculiar to them
selves, of which Mr. Niebuhr has given an alphabet, though he
seems to have collected no other information regarding them.