On The Same Day, The City Was Set
On Fire In Several Places, By The Command Of The Persian General, As Was
Reported, Because His Arab Soldiers Lurked Among The Houses, And Could
Not Be Got Forth To Do Any Service In The Siege.
To the number of four or five thousand men, we were now cooped up in a
barren island without
Shelter, producing nothing in itself except salt;
and I know not by what mistaken policy the general had been induced to
send away all the rice and other victuals, by which means we were
reduced to depend upon the continent for a daily supply of provisions,
and even water; so that, if a fleet of Portuguese frigates had come, as
was expected, we must have been famished, as the country boats durst not
have ventured to us from the main. The rain water in the open cisterns
was daily wasted, and became brackish, no care being taken to fill the
jars and private cisterns in almost every house, while it remained good.
The Persians are quite ignorant in the art of war, for they entered the
breach without fear, precaution, or means of establishing themselves;
and they lost with shame what they might have defended with honour. I
observed other defects in their management, even of the very sinews of
war; and I am astonished that Shah Abbas, the wonder of our age, should
have sent his army on this expedition so weakly provided with money,
arms, ammunition, ships, and all other necessaries.
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