Page:The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema (1863).djvu/81

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All this is now changed, and Hormuz, like the Tyre of Scripture, is little better than a rock for fishermen to spread their nets on. It was captured by the Portuguese under Albuquerque in 1508, who were in turn expelled in 1662 by the Persians, aided by a British fleet, during the reign of Shâh Abbâs, who caused the colony to be removed to Gombrûn on the opposite mainland, and dignified it with the name of Bander Abbâs. The intervention of Great Britain in this affair is thus judiciously commented on by Sir John Malcolm:—

"If the English ever indulged a hope of deriving per-
manent benefit from the share they took in this transaction, they were completely disappointed. They had, it is true, revenged themselves upon an enemy they hated, destroyed a flourishing settlement, and brought ruin and misery upon thousands, to gratify the avarice and ambition of a despot, who promised to enrich them by a layout, which they should have known was not likely to protect them, even during his life, from the violence and injustice of his own officers, much less during that of his successors. The history of the English factory at Gombroon, from this date till it was abandoned, is one series of disgrace, of losses, and of dangers, as that of every such establishment in a country like Persia must be. Had that nation either taken Ormuz for itself, or made a settlement on a more eligible island in the gulf, it would have carried on its commerce with that quarter to much greater advantage; and its political influence, both in Persia and Arabia, would have remained unrivalled."[1]

We are now to accompany our traveller through a part of the journey where the landmarks of his route

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  1. ↑ History of Persia, vol. i. p. 547.
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