Sec. Hi] THROUGH RUDAN TO OLD HORMUZ 187
From here we struck to the north and passed for about 7 miles through an area where stretches of scrubby waste alternate with extensive plantations of date-palms irrigated by canals from the Minàb river. Beyond the last village, Kulaibi, passing over a gently rising glacis of clay we reached the regular caravan road towards Bandar Abbàs at the village of Gavarband. Here and elsewhere along this road such little cultivation as exists in small patches was found to depend on wells, and what scanty rainfall this ground at the foot of the low outer hills receives.
Nowhere on the journey of fifty-odd miles which brought us by December 6th to Bandar Abbàs did I learn of any old remains. Nor could any be reasonably looked for on the wide alluvial plain, almost wholly a barren clay desert, which stretches down to the sea south of the thin chain of little oases passed by the caravan route. For this absence of antiquarian interest there was compensation in the hope that an early arrival at Bandar Abbàs, the only Persian port and administrative centre of the present day in the lower portion of the Gulf, would allow me to secure more satisfactory conditions for my travel along its shores.
p. 110, note 1. I could not learn of any remains which would more closely answer to this description.
Here I may conveniently mention that the only other ruined site of which I could learn at Minâb was a place named Qal`a-i-Zangiân. When guided to it on the left bank of the river about 2 miles above Minàb town, the alleged old castle proved a boldly serrated rocky hill which might have served as a natural place of refuge were its narrow crest
not manifestly inaccessible even to bold cragsmen. Subsequently I was told that our guide had been mistaken and the place intended was really some-. what lower down on the right bank of the river. The specimens of glazed pottery fragments then brought to me as having been found there were all of such late ware that I was not induced to spare time for a fresh visit.
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