'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎133] (300/524)

PORTION OF THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
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Ophthalmia is the chief disease, hut not so prevalent as at Bunder
Mashoor.
The river, which is said to rise near Shiraz and flow past Behhehan,
is here about one hundred yards wide, with banks fifteen or eighteen
feet high. Bellams can go up near to Behbehan, but not to it, on ac
count of rocks and the shallowness of the water ; hut by caravan it is
onlv two davs, seven fursacks from this to Zeidoon and from Zeidoon
*
to Behbehan, not quite so much.
The ferry-boat was lying on the bank full of holes and half full of
mud, and but for a chance bugalow from Koweit, we should have had
to make a raft or invent something to cross our kit on.
March \7th .—Having crossed the river, we rode in a direction E. by
N., the three ranges of hills in front of us the lowest only about six
miles off.
2-40.—Rode East over a plain rising gradually towards the South
and sloping down to the foot of the hills.
At 4-25, a mound was seen about four miles to our right. The
guide called it Tol Morgei, a house of the Ghebers or Hindoos, or in
fact whatever he thought would please, for he was a Persian.
The mound was the remains of a house built of fossiliferous sand
stone on a sandy flat, covered by the sea at high tides. It did not
seem of very ancient date.
At 5-15, we found sandstone filled with fossils of marine mollusca
cropping out; the same stone as that Tol Morgei had been built of.
At 5-30, our direction was East over a barren Mashelah with the sea
to our right, and at 9-50 p. m. we arrived at Shah-bool-Shah or
Sheik Abdullah as it is called by the Arabs.
Our road after dark was through a salt plain intersected by many
shallow inlets from the sea with here and there mounds of sand and
brushwood.
We heard the waves nearly all the time, and at 8 o’clock we passed
along a bank which bordered on the shore.
Sheik Abdullah is a miserable village of about twenty houses, half
in ruins, and a small tomb with a white dome. It is built on a low
sandy shore. The place has no trade, and does not possess even a
boat.