'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.' [‎510] (541/582)

510
FOREIGN TRADE OF MUSCAT.
They were then the carriers of India, under a neutral flag, as the
Dutch were once, and after them the Americans, in Europe. The
wealth which their merchants acquired from the high freights given
to their vessels, both by the English and the French, in the time
when the Indian Sea was a theatre of naval war, enabled them
to purchase largely of the prize goods which were then to be found
in the ports of both these nations at a very low rate, and to carry
them in their own vessels with security to every part of the
Eastern Islands, the coasts of Pegu, and the ports of the Arabian
and Persian Gulfs, where their profits were immense. Their
own port too, being made, like Malta in the Mediterranean, a
magazine or depot of general merchandize, the smaller vessels
of all the surrounding nations who could not procure these goods
from the English or French settlements direct, came and bought
them here, so that the port was always crowded with shipping.
The trade of Muscat is at present confined to about twenty sail
of ships under the Arab flag, properly belonging to the port,
and forty or fifty bughelas and dows. The former, which vary
in size from three hundred to six hundred tons, are employed in
voyages to Bengal, from which they bring muslins and piece-
goods ; to the Eastern Islands, for drugs and spices; to the
coast of Malabar, for ship-timber, rice, and pepper ; to Bombay,
for European articles, principally the coarser metals, lead, iron,
and tin, and for the productions and manufactures of China,
into the ports of which country their flag is not admitted; and
lastly, to the Mauritius, for coffee and cotton in small quantities,
returning by way of Zanzebar on the African coast, where they
have a settlement, in which is collected gold dust, ostrich fea
thers, tamarinds, elephants' teeth, and slaves. Their dows or
smaller vessels carry assortments of all these goods to Bussorah,
Bushire, and Bahrein, from which they bring down dates, pearls,
and dollars, with some little copper ; to the coasts of Sind and
Baloochistan, from which they bring in return the commodities
of more distant countries, met with at Mecca during the great