'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎238] (413/524)

238 REMARKS ON THE PORT OF LING AH,
4 . Lingah contains a fort, and is surrounded by an unwalled town
of stone, flanked on either side along the shore line by a series of
clusters of houses, overhung with date trees, lire roadstead is open,
and though sheltered from the North-west, is dangerous for shipping
during the prevailing South-east and South-west winds, hut a solid
masonry breakwater affords protection to small craft. Lingali may he
some twenty-five miles distant from Bassidore in a North-westerly di
rection, and is the chief town of a district lying immediately between
the sea and barren and precipitous mountains which lead up through
Lar, and so on to the Shiraz road. The district touches the Sheikh
dom of Moghoo on the North-west, and extends South-east almost to
Bunder Mollum and the region farmed under Bunder Abbass by the
Sultan of Muskat. About four miles South-east of Lingah lie the
ruins of the Portuguese Fort Kongo, Portions of what seems to have
been the factory An East India Company trading post. and a half-moon casemated battery are still standing
close to the water line, as are also the ruins of a breakwater from which
probably the idea of that of Lingah was taken. The produce of the
district consists of dates and some barley and wheat sufficient for home
consumption. The Sheikh of Lingah is an Arab, and claims to be a
descendant of a family that emigrated to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. at the period
when the Arabs were at the height of their power at Baghdad. He
is, I believe, related to the Basulkhymah chief on the opposite coast.
No import or export duty is due in Lingah, and it is probably to this
fact,* and to that of geographical position, having preserved the port
from Governmental interference, that its hitherto prosperity is due.
At present the township, with its adjacent suburbs, may contain 8 or 9
or 10,000 inhabitants, of whom the bulk are evidently Africans. The
wealthier class are Persianized Arabs, and some Persians also have been
attracted from the upper country for labour on the spot, or as carriers
into the interior. There are also some twenty Hindoos residing in the
place as Agents for Firms in Bombay or Kurrachee, It appears from
this statement, as well as from the conversation of the merchants them-
* A straw shows which way the wind blows, and a needle indicates the north
pole, so wherever I go I find that be the spot ever so unfavourably situate, and
its national importance ever so small, still absolute freedom in trade is invariably
followed by traders preferring this point to other possessions with natural advan
tages. Will the day ever arrive when Custom Houses shall be numbered among
the things which were but are not?