The rise of the English trade and factories in the Indian seas in the beginning of the 17th century led to constant jealousies and broils with the Portuguese, and the successful efforts of the English company to open traffic with Persia especially embittered their rivals, to whom the possession of Hormuz had long given a monopoly of that trade. The officers of Shāh Abbās, who looked with a covetous and resentful eye on the Portuguese occupation of such a position, were strongly desirous of the aid of English ships in attacking Hormuz. During 1620 and 1621 the ships of Portugal and of the English company had more than once come to action in the Indian seas, and in November of the latter year the council at Surat had resolved on what was practically maritime war with the Portuguese flag. There was hardly a step between this and the decision come to in the following month to join with “the duke of Shirāz” (Imām Kūlī Khān, the governor of Fars) in the desired expedition against Hormuz. There was some pretext of being forced into the alliance by a Persian threat to lay embargo on the English goods at Jashk; but this seems to have been only brought forward by the English agents when, at a later date, their proceedings were called in question. The English crews were at first unwilling to take part in what they justly said was “no merchandizing business, nor were they engaged for the like,” but they were persuaded, and five English vessels aided, first, in the attack of Kishm, where (at the east end of the large island so called) the Portuguese had lately built a fort,[1] and afterwards in that of Hormuz itself. The latter siege was opened on the 18th of February 1622, and continued to the 1st of May, when the Portuguese, after a gallant defence of ten weeks, surrendered. It is to be recollected that Portugal was at this time subject to the crown of Spain, with which England was at peace; indeed, it was but a year later that the prince of Wales went on his wooing adventure to the Spanish court. The irritation there was naturally great, though it is surprising how little came of it. The company were supposed (apparently without foundation) to have profited largely by the Hormuz booty; and both the duke of Buckingham and the king claimed to be “sweetened,” as the record phrases it, from this supposed treasure. The former certainly received a large bribe (£10,000). The conclusion of the transaction with the king was formerly considered doubtful; but entries in the calendar of East India papers seem to show that James received an equal sum.[2]
Hormuz never recovered from this blow. The Persians transferred their establishments to Gombroon on the mainland, about 12 m. to the north-west, which the king had lately set up as a royal port under the name of Bander Abbāsi. The English stipulations for aid had embraced an equal division of the customs duties. This division was apparently recognized by the Persians as applying to the new Bander, and, though the trade with Persia was constantly decaying and precarious, the company held to their factory at Gombroon for the sake of this claim to revenue, which of course was most irregularly paid. In 1683–1684 the amount of debt due to the company in Persia, including their proportion of customs duties, was reckoned at a million sterling. As late as 1690–1691 their right seems to have been admitted, and a payment of 3495 sequins was received by them on this account. The factory at Gombroon lingered on till 1759, when it was seized by two French ships of war under Comte d’Estaing. It was re-established, but at the time of Niebuhr’s visit to the gulf a few years later no European remained. Niebuhr mentions that in his time (c. 1765) Mulla ’Ali Shāh, formerly admiral of Nādir Shāh, was established on the island of Hormuz and part of Kishm as an independent chief.
See also Barros, Asia; Commentaries of Albuquerque, trans. by Birch (Hak. Society); Relaciones de Pedro Teixeira (Antwerp, 1610); Narratives in Hakluyt’s Collection (reprint in 1809, vol. ii.) and in Purchas’s Pilgrims, vol. ii.; Pietro della Valle, Persia, lett. xii.-xvii.; Calendar of E. I. Papers, by Sainsbury, vol. iii.; Ritter, Erdkunde, xii.; Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc., Kempthorne in vol. v., White-locke in vol. viii., Pelly in vol. xxxiv.; Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan (1825); Constable and Stifle, Persian Gulf Pilot (1864); Bruce, Annals of the E. I. Company, &c. (1810). (H. Y.)
The island has a circumference of 16 m. and its longest axis measures 412 m. The village is in 27° 6′ N., 56° 29′ E. The Portuguese fort still stands, but is sadly out of repair and much of its western wall has been undermined and washed away by the action of the sea. It is a bastioned fort with orillons and loopholed casemates under the ramparts and was separated from the town by a deep moat, now silted up, cut E.-W. across the isthmus and crossed by a bridge. It has three cisterns for collecting rainwater; two are 17-18 ft. deep, have a capacity of about 60,000 gallons and are covered by arched roofs supported on six stone pillars. The third cistern is smaller and has no roof. Five rusty old iron guns are lying prone on the roof; six others on the strand before the village are used for fastening boats, another serves as a socket for a flagstaff before the representative of the government. The island is under the jurisdiction of the governor of the Persian Gulf ports who resides at Bushire. Of the old city hardly anything stands except a minaret, 70 ft. high, with a winding staircase inside and much worn away at the base, part of a former mosque used by the Portuguese as a lighthouse, but the traces of buildings, massive foundations constructed of stone quarried in the hills on the island, of many cisterns (some say 300), &c., are numerous and extensive. The modern settlement, situated south of the fort on the eastern shore, has a population of about 1000 during the cool season, but less in the hot season, when many people go over to Minab on the mainland to the east. Most of the people live in huts constructed of the branches and leaves of the date palm. They own about sixty small sailing vessels trading to Muscat and other ports and also do some pearl-fishing. At Turan Bagh on the east coast 412 m. S.E. of the fort are some considerable ruins, irrigation canals, an extensive burial ground and some huts occupied by a few families who cultivate a small garden on a terrace supported by old retaining walls. On a hill near the shore 112 m. S.E. of the fort is the ruin of a small chapel called “Santa Lucia” on an old map in Astley’s Collection of Voyages, and on the summit of a salt hill 112 m. south of the fort are the remains of another chapel called “N.S. de la Pena” on the same map, and a “Monastery” in a sketch of Hormuz made by David Davies, a mate on board the East India Company’s ship “Discovery” in 1627. With the exception of the northern part, where the old city stood, and the little patch at Turan Bagh, the island is covered with reddish brown hills with sharp serrated ridges composed of gypsum, rock-salt and clay. These hills, which do not exceed 300 ft. in height, are broken through in four places by conical, whitish peaks of volcanic rocks (greenstone, trachyte); the highest of these peaks with an altitude of 690 ft. is situated almost in the centre of the island.
The island has extensive beds of red ochre in which nodules of very pure hematite are often found. The ochre, here called gīlek, has been an important article of export for centuries[3] and great quantities of it are exported at the present time to England (in 1906–1907, 10,000 tons; local price 27s. the ton). The climate of Hormuz, although hot, is, according to medical experts, the best in the Persian Gulf. Rain falls in January, February and March, and the annual rainfall is said to be about the same as that of Bushire, 12 to 13 in.
Capt. A. W. Stiffe in Geogr. Mag. (April 1874); William Foster in Geogr. Journal (Aug. 1894); writer’s notes taken on island. (A. H.-S.)
HORN, ARVID BERNHARD, Count (1664–1742), Swedish
statesman, was born at Vuorentaka in Finland on the 6th of
April 1664, of a noble but indigent family. After completing
his studies at Åbo, he entered the army and served for several
years in the Netherlands, in Hungary under Prince Eugene,
and in Flanders under Waldeck (1690–1695). He stood high
- ↑ The attack on Kishm was notable in that one of the two Englishmen killed there was the great navigator Baffin.
- ↑ Colonial Series, E. Indies, by Sainsbury, vol. iii. passim, especially see pp. 296 and 329.
- ↑ “Reddle or Red Ochre from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire is very little inferior to the Sort brought from the Island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulph and so much valued and used by our Painters under the name of Indian Red” (Sir John Hill, Theophrastus’s History of Stones, London, 1774).
