"تاريخ البحرية الهندية. (١٦١٣- ١٨٦٣)." [‎٣‎٨‎٣] (٦٢٢/٤٠٢)

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAYY.
383
kind-hearted gentleman, not more unfitted for his post than
most men possessing these virtues as their chief recommenda
tions to high command. Though weak, lie was not unpopular
in the Service, but we are not aware that any one regretted his
departure, save those bound to him by acts of personal kind
ness.
In 1856 the Home Government issued orders for the reoccu-
pation of the island of Perim, and for the construction of a
lighthouse on the most commanding point, so that vessels
should be able to pass the Straits at any hour of the day or
night. As a military position, it was considered that the island
could never be of any real importance, chiefly from the want of
water, while its guns could only command the northern chan
nel of one and a half miles, the strait on the African side of
the island having a breadth of eleven miles, so that a fleet could,
by hugging that shore, avoid the fire of ordnance of the heaviest
calibre. From the year 1795, when a British force under
Colonel Murray evacuated Perim,* after an occupation of a few
months, up to the year 1857, the island never occupied the
attention of the Indian or any other Government. In conse-
* In an early chapter we have spoken of the temporary occupation of Perim
by pirates, who, after having, with much labour, dug through the solid rock
to a depth of fifteen fathoms, in a fruitless search for water, abandoned their
design and removed to Mary's Island, on the east coast of Madagascar. In 1738,
after the French bombarded Mocha, on account of some outrages which had been
perpetrated by the Dowla, or Viceroy of the Imaum of Sanaa, on a French
merchant vessel at that port, they landed on the island. The next to occupy
Perim were the British, who, in April, 1799, sent a small squadron with a
detachment of three hundred men, under the command of Colonel (afterwards
G-eneral Sir) John Murray, who had been appointed British Commissioner to
execute this Service ; and on the 3rd of May, the island of Perim was formally
taken possession of on behalf of the East India Company. No opposition of any
sort was made to our occupation of Perim, and during the short time the garrison
remained there, they were regularly supplied with provisions from Mocha, the
chief maritime town of the Imaum of Sanaa. From that period till the 1st of
September following, the troops continued in possession of Perim; but, finding
that the island yielded no fresh water, and that the Straits could not be com
manded by batteries on the shore, Colonel Murray proceeded to Aden, and, in
the following March, returned to Bombay. The first European to visit Perim
was Albuquerque, who is said to have landed here in 1513, on his return from
the Red Sea, and having erected a high cross on an eminence, he called the island
Santa Cruz.
Arrian, who flourished about A .d . 140, in his <c Periplus Maris Erythrcei," or
circumnavigation of the Erythroean Sea, as the Indian Ocean was called, styles
Perim the island of Diodorus. It would seem that the merchant vessels of the
Eoman Empire navigated the Eed Sea, Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf, which
were all known as the Erythrcean Sea, and proceeded as far south as Madagascar,
and east as the Malabar Coast, of which Arrian gives an account. He also
describes the shores of Asia from the mouth of the Indus to the river Karoon,
including Bardis (Cape Jask), the river Anamis (Minao)—where took place,
according to Arrian's " History of the Expedition of Alexander the Grreat and
his conquest of Persia," the meeting between the Macedonian King and his
Admiral, Nearchus—the islands of Oarakhta (Xishm) and Pylora (Polior), and
other places, to the city of Susa in Susiana (Khuzistan), where Alexander effected
a junction with his adventurous admiral.