'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎239] (414/524)

THE ISLAND OF KISHM, &C.
239
1 ^rtWestal,'
ID ” ' n ” ne i>telj 1,1,,
nct t0ll *s (lie Sl,l
J< k ^Aeast akoiit
r BnndetAHaijji
b-east«{Linjjlliil
ns of what seems to b
battery are still stai;
a breakwater from#
in. The produce of I
wheat sufficient fork
,rab, and claims to I
‘ersian Gulf at the pe®
selves,-that the little commercial importance of this place is due to its
being conveniently situated as a point of agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. for trade coming from
India and seeking a market along the Arabian coast of the Gulf and so
to the Persian territory in the immediate neighbourhood of Lingah and
towards Lar. Goods are landed, and, if prices pay, are sold on the
spot, and are sent towards the interior at the risk of the purchaser.
Lingah merchants consider the road through the Eliant haunts too
insecure to permit of their trading themselves with the interior. It is
however I think obvious that, unless owing to accidental circumstances,
Lingah, from its geographical position, and from its dangerous an
chorage, would he quite unable to compete with the inland trade of
Bushire or Bunder Abbass; and its statistics show that the bulk of its
trade is with the maritime Arab ports, goods being re-shipped thither
in small coasting craft according to demand and opportunity. Specie
and pearls, and perhaps a little salt-fish, are, I believe, the only re
turns from the Arab ports. About eight or ten boats are engaged at
Lingah for the pearl fishery. There may be some IbO native craft of
all sizes belonging to the people of the place, and it is remarkable that
although labour is cheap and efficient in boat-building along the
Western coast of India, yet the builders at Lingah prefer to import
their wood from India and build their buglas (which seem of capital
construction) on their own beach,
5. From Bassidore I crossed the island to visit some salt caves and
naptha springs. The road, after leaving a ledge of rock on which
Bassidore is built, descends a few feet into a plain, sprinkled here and
there with a few date trees, and passes the ruins of an old Portuguese
fort, situated on a detached rock, and overlooking the Clarence Straits.
After some seven miles you reach the village of Gooree, and thence
wind among low hills for about five miles more into the plain of Kownee,
distant only a mile or two from the seaward shore. Leaving Kownee,
you pass eastward along a valley towards a range of dark-red hills;
these form the salt range. The general formation of the island, which,
like that extending ail along this and the Mekran coast to Kurrachee,
is a coarse sandstone grit and conglomerate, overlying blue lias marl, *
now suddenly ceases, and the salt formation, which seems to extend
* I speak of the prevailing character of the region, a good section of which is
laid bare in the cliff at Munora Point near Knrrachee.