Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎742r] (1500/1814)

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with a total population of 10 , 000 , before the pirates established
their ascendency in the Gulf in the last century. It has greatly
decayed since, and has suffered severely in recent years from earth
quakes ; but its customs are still farmed for 3,300 tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , the bulk
of which revenue is derived from its salt mines. Its population has
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' /- ' been estimated in the joast year at about 12,000 (Kishm
4,000, Laft 800-1,000, Deristan 800, Susa 400, Kauri * 400,
’-“’Crlniri 250, Basiduh 350). A coarse naphtha is also produced at
. v some sorinffs on the southern coast, near flm villao-p nf Sa.la.Vl nn_
v ; : some springs on the southern coast, near the village of Salakh, op
posite the island of Henjam, and is used by the Arabs both for
lighting purposes and as a remedy for rheumatic complaints. There
v " is a good deal of game on the island, wild goats, partridges, and . w/
/ rock-pigeons in the hills; and abundance of small and beautiful ?■'
antelopes or gazelles on the plains, which used to be hunted with
t greyhounds by the British officers at Basiduh. ( „ ,
\ r- L To English readers, however, the chief interest of Kishm will
during the greater part of the pre
sent century, a British military or naval station. The
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lie in the fact that it has been, during the greater part
Tettie^ principal town, called El Kishm, once held by the Tor
ments tugnese, is at its north-eastern extremity. Two miles from
this, and on the very site of the old Portuguese castle , 1 a canton- 7
ment of English and Indian troops, several hundred strong, was /
established in 1820, with the idea of overawing the Jowasmi
pirates. This force, originally 1,200 strong, had been stationed ,,
first at the captured pirate stronghold of Bas-el-Kheimah, on V
the opposite shore of the Gulf, but had been compelled by the
climate to evacuate that position. For their purpose the new
station and the troops were equally useless ; and the men suffered
severely from the heat , 2 besides being almost wholly dependent upon
1 The English flotilla, in conjunction with the land troops of Shah Abbas,
besieged the Portuguese castle on Kishm from January 13 to 19, 1622 (on the
latter day the garrison yielded), prior to their joint attack upon Ormuz. In the
engagement only two Englishmen lost their lives, but one of these was the famous
navigator, William Baffin, the discoverer of Baffin’s Bay, who, having entered the
service of the East India Company, sailed hither with the beleaguering squadron.
As Mr. T. Wilson, the chyrurgion of the flotilla, quaintly wrote : ‘ Master Baffin went
on shoare with his geometricall instruments for the taking the height and distance
of the Castle wall, for the better levelling of his Peece to make his shot; but as
he was about the same, he received a small shot from the Castle into his belly,
wherewith he gave three leapes, by report, and died immediately ’ (Purchas’ iW-
yrims, vol. ii. lib. x. cap. 9 ).
2 The appalling heat was the cause of a similar military retreat two centuries
earlier; Tavernier being our authority for the episode, which is curious. After the
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