- E.]

[Footnote 99:

The account in the text is unintelligible and contradictory: But we fortunately have one more intelligible from the editor of Astley's Collection, I. 65. c. which being too long for a note, has been placed in the text between inverted commas. - E.]

"This account of the origin of the kingdom of Ormuz or Harmuz is related differently in a history of that state written by one of its kings, and given to us by Teixeira at the end of his history of Persia, as follows. - In the year of Hejirah 700, and of Christ 1302, when the Turkomans, or Turks from Turkestan, overran Persia as far as the Persian Gulf, Mir Bahaddin Ayaz Seyfin, the fifteenth king of Ormuz, resolved, to leave the continent where his dominions then were, and to retire to some of the adjacent islands. He first passed over with his people to the large island of Brokt or Kishmish[100], called Quixome by the Portuguese, and afterwards removed to a desert isle two leagues distant eastward, which he begged from Neyn king of Keys, and built a new city, calling it Harmuz after the name of his former capital on the coast, the ruins of which are still visible to the east of Gamrun or Gambroon. By the Arabs and Persians, this island is called Jerun, from a fisherman who lived there at the time when Ayaz first took possession. In the course of two hundred years, this new city and kingdom advanced so much in wealth and power, that it extended its dominion over a great part of the coasts of Arabia and Persia, all the way to Basrah or Basora. It became the chief mart of trade in all these parts, which had formerly been established at Keys; but after the reduction of Ormuz, by the Portuguese, its trade and consequence declined much, owing to their tyranny and oppression. Ayaz Seyfin, was succeeded by Amir Ayas Oddin Gordun Shah. Thus it appears distinctly, that the Malek Kaes in the text of Faria, ought to have been called the Malek or king of Kaes or Keys; and that instead of the kingdom of Gordunshah of the province of Mogostan, it should have been Gordun Shah king of Mogostan; besides, the island was not granted to him, but to his predecessor Ayaz. As a mark of their sense of the riches of Ormuz, the orientals used to say proverbially, if the world were considered as a ring, Ormuz was its jewel."

[Footnote 100: In a plan of Ormuz given in Astley's Collection, the isle of Kishoma or Kishmis is placed at a small distance from that of Ormuz or Jerun, and is said to be the place whence Ormuz is supplied with water. In fact the island of Kismis or Kishom is of considerable size and some fertility, though exceedingly unhealthy, while that of Jerun on which Ormuz was built, though barren and without water, was comparatively healthy. It was a commercial garrison town of the Arabs, for the purpose of carrying on the trade of the Persian Gulf, and at the same time withdrawing from the oppressive rule of the Turkoman conquerors of Persia.

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