The town of Basora is a mile and a half in circuit; all the houses, with
the castle and the walls, being of brick dried in the sun. The Grand
Turk has here five hundred janisaries always in garrison, besides other
soldiers; but his chief force consists in twenty-five or thirty fine
gallies, well furnished with good ordnance. To this port of Basora there
come every month divers ships from Ormus, laden with all sorts of Indian
goods, as spices, drugs, indigo, and calico cloth. These ships are from
forty to sixty tons burden, having their planks sewed together with
twine made of the bark of the date-palm; and, instead of oakum, their
seams are filled with slips of the same bark, of which also their tackle
is made. In these vessels they have no kind of iron-work whatever,
except their anchors. In six days sail down the Gulf of Persia, they go
to an island called. Bahrein, midway to Ormus, where they fish for
pearls during the four months of June, July, August, and September.

I remained six months at Basora, in which time I received several
letters from Mr John Newberry, then at Ormus, who, as he passed that
way, proceeded with letters, from her majesty to Zelabdim Echebar, king
of Cambaia,[4] and to the mighty Emperor of China, was treacherously
there arrested, with all his company, by the Portuguese, and afterwards
sent prisoner to Goa, where, after a long and cruel imprisonment, he and
his companions were released, upon giving surety not to depart from
thence without leave, at the instance of one Father Thomas Stevens, an
English priest, whom they found there. Shortly afterwards three of them
made their escape, of whom Mr Ralph Fitch is since come to England. The
fourth, who was Mr John Story, painter, became a religious in the
college of St Paul, at Goa, as we were informed by letters from that
place.

[Footnote 4: Akbar Shah, padishah or emperor of the Moguls in