'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.' [‎522] (553/582)

522
HISTORY OF MUSCAT.
much, however, may be said, that there are at present no visible
remains of such grandeur, in fortifications, colleges, churches,
palaces, and private mansions, as Mr. Milburn has described; though
at Aden in Arabia Felix, and all over Salsette in India, marks of
such monuments are to be traced, and it is not easy to conceive
a reason why they should be more completely erased in this place
than in either of the others. Both of these writers agree, how-
ever, that the Portuguese were at length driven out from Muscat
by the Arabs; and that these last, to avenge themselves for their
former injuries, betook themselves to general piracy, and having
many large ships, from thirty to fifty guns, committed great
depredations on the maritime trade of all India. They were
at length so effectually checked by the naval force of the British
in these seas, that their piratical pursuits were abandoned for
commercial ones as early as the commencement of the last cen
tury, since which they have become such as I have here endea
voured to describe them. #
* Some of the wise men of the East, who saw the star of the Messiah, and came to Judea
to worship him, are believed to have assembled, at Muscat in their way, according to the
curious relation of an Armenian bishop, who spent twenty years in visiting the Christians on
the coast of Coromandel. In giving the history of the dispersion of the twelve Apostles
through the world, and the visit of St. Thomas to India, where he suffered martyrdom, this
grave bishop declares upon oath, that it was affirmed by a learned native of Coulan, that
there were two religious houses built in that part of the country by the disciples of St. Tho
mas, one in Coulan, and the other at Cranganore; in the former of which the Indian Sibyl
was buried, who advised King Perimal of Ceylon to meet other two Indian kings at Muscat,
who were going to Bethlem to adore the newly born Saviour; and that King Perimal, at her
entreaty, brought her (on his return from Jerusalem) a picture of the Blessed Virgin, which
was kept in the same tomb.— Portuguese Discovery and Conquest of India, part 2. b. 3. c. i.
v. 6.—in Kerr's Collection, vol. vi. p. 196, 197. and part 2. b. 3. c. iv. s. vi. p. 419.
This Sibyl of the East seems to have been as highly favoured with a prophetic knowledge
of the great work of redemption then about to be wrought by the Deity, as the last remaining
Sibyl of the West was, who continued to burn the oracular books to the last three, and still
demanded the same price for these as she had done for the original nine, from a conviction of
their high importance, as they co ntained even more sublime prophecies of the Messiah than
the most eloquent of the writers among the Holy Scriptures had given utterance to.
The history of these Sibyllse, and of the Sibylline verses, may be found at large in the
Classical Dictionaries, But there is a note of a reverend Doctor of Divinity, as the Editor