RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE. 
57 
the door a large brass Portuguese gun, a sixty-eight pounder, on a very 
uncertain carriage; besides two or three in a much ruder state. It is 
said that on some invasion when the place was beset, this gun was fired, 
but the concussion was so great and unexpected, that it blew open the 
gates, shook down fragments of the towers, and gave the enemy an easy 
entrance. The materials of the town (a soft sandy stone, incrustated 
with shells) are drawn from the ruins of Reshire , in its neighbour¬ 
hood. Most of the adjacent villages are built of the same stone, the 
only species indeed found in the peninsula, and which was already thus 
prepared for their use in the remains of Re shire. But such materials are 
continually decomposing; and the dust which falls from them adds to 
the already sandy ground-work of their streets, and, when set in motion 
by the wind or by a passing caravan, creates an impenetrable cloud. 
The streets are from six to eight feet wide, and display on each side 
nothing but inhospitable walls. A great man’s dwelling (there are nine 
in Bushire) is distinguished by a wind chimney. This is a square turret 
on the sides of which are perpendicular apertures, and in the interior of 
which are crossed divisions, which form different currents of air, and 
communicate some comfort to the heated apartments of the house. But 
the comfort is not wholly without danger; as in an earthquake some 
years ago the turrets were thrown down to the great damage of the sur¬ 
rounding buildings. 
There are supposed to be in the town four hundred houses, besides 
several alleys of date-tree-huts on entering the gates, which may add an 
equal number to the whole. The number of inhabitants is dispropor- 
tionably large, but it is calculated that there are ten thousand persons in 
the place. There are four mosques of the Sheyahs , and three of the 
Sunnis; and there are two Hummums and two Caravanserais; but 
there is no public building in Bushire which deserves any more par¬ 
ticular description. The old English factory is a large straggling 
building near the sea side; the left wing is breaking down. The Bazars 
are exactly those of a provincial town in Turkey. The shop is a little 
platform, raised about two feet above the foot-path ; where the Vender, 
i 
