国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Sec. iii]   CONCLUDING STAY AT BUSHIRE   235

part having been prompted by regard for the conditions which for the time prevailed in that particular area and the extension of which to neighbouring areas might be apprehended. Hence there seemed reason to hope that by proposing to transfer my investigations to ground far away from it a modification of that order might yet be secured.

There is no need to record here at any length the repeated and strenuous efforts which experienced advice kindly offered at the Residency and the Consulate-General encouraged me to make for this purpose. Nothing could have exceeded the friendly interest with which my representations on the subject were supported by the British diplomatic representatives with the local, the provincial, and the central authorities. Whatever opportunities were afforded by personal interviews with the well-disposed Governor of the Coast and by appeals by post and telegraph for consideration at Tehran were promptly and fully used. As week after week passed in these efforts and the anxious suspense they entailed, I had reason to appreciate all the more gratefully the encouraging sympathy of my kind hosts and all the care and comfort enjoyed under their hospitable roof after that time of hard travel by the coast.

The hopes entertained for a time of being allowed to extend my survey of old remains to the Dashti valley or to the coastal tract farther up the Gulf gradually receded during these weeks of anxious waiting. At the same time the increasing heat showed only too clearly that the remainder of the season still available for field-work on such low ground would soon pass. The effects of this uncertainty and delay might have been less felt by me if Bushire itself had offered more opportunities for useful fresh observations.

The peninsula at the northern extremity of which the present town and port of Bushire is situated is about 16 miles in length. It has undoubtedly been occupied from very early times,' and has long been safely identified with the peninsula of Mesambria, where Nearchos on the voyage to the head of the Gulf found `many gardens and all sorts of fruit trees'.2 But apart from the scanty remains of Rishahr (Reshire), situated some 7 miles to the south of Bushire, which late medieval Arab geographers mention as a modest port,' the only early site so far traced is the ruined mound situated about the centre of the peninsula, a short distance to the east of the British Residency at Sabzâbâd. It had been carefully explored by M. Maurice Pézard in 1913, after previous discoveries had proved the great antiquity of the site.4 M. Pézard's exploration showed that the upper

1 For a careful account of Bushire, which has replaced the medieval port of Rishahr (Reshire) only in comparatively recent times, and its history, see Wilson, Persian Gulf, pp. 73 sq., 176 sqq., &c.

(Index).   2 Cf. Arrian, Indikê xxxix. 2.

3 See Wilson, loc. cit., p. 74. The notices of Risbabr collected from earlier Arab authors by Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter, pp. 120 sqq., refer to a town probably situated inland to the north.

4 For M. Pézard's excavations see his Mission