National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

part having been prompted by regard for the conditions which for the time pre-
vailed 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 Con-
sulate-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 Tehrān 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 Dashtī 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 occu-
pied from very early times,¹ and has long been safely identified with the penin-
sula 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 Rīshahr (Reshire), situated some 7 miles to the south of Bushire, which late
medieval Arab geographers mention as a modest port,³ 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 Sabzābād. 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