ENTRANCE OF PERSIAN GULF. 
25 
coast, which is open to nautical surveys, the deficiency of geographical 
knowledge is great; and although the instructions in directories. East 
India pilots, &c. for sailing along this coast, are numerous, and although 
we were supplied with charts “ from the latest surveys and best au¬ 
thorities,” yet we were obliged to depend almost entirely on our own 
observations and our own “ look out a-head,” which after all, is the 
seaman’s best security. 
We found that opinions were very various upon the nature and 
length of our passage up the Gulf at the present season of the year. 
At Bombay we were told twenty days would be the utmost; our direc¬ 
tory informed us that February is one of the good months for sailing to 
Persia; and the Governor himself assured us that the longer we stayed 
at Bombay the shorter would be our voyage: but when we arrived on 
board we were astonished to hear different intelligence from our pilot, 
a lieutenant in the Bombay marine, who affirmed that we should be 
lucky to get to Bushire in five weeks. 
The first days of our navigation confirmed the opinion of the pilot, 
for we had the wind at N. W.; but on the 8th of February we enjoyed 
a delightful breeze which filled every sail, and which the directory 
stated to be common at this season in the Gulf of Cutch. 
On the 9th of February, we saw at a considerable distance land 
which we all took for Cape Arubah, and on the next day in the morn¬ 
ing we were near an insulated piece of land, considerably higher at one 
extremity than the other, which almost all concluded to be the island 
of Ashtola; but the appearance of the latter is so remarkable, (being a 
low slip of land, so equal in its surface, that it almost forms a parallel 
line with that of the horizon,) that I was enabled to say, from having 
been at anchor close to it in my former voyage, that Ashtola must be 
still a-head, and that this land must be the real Arubah. This proved 
to be the case, for at noon we saw Ashtola, and passed it at a distance 
of about four leagues. * In the evening we made Cape Passenza, 
* At nine o’clock in the morning, the extremes of Arubah bore from N. 23“ E. to N. 44° E. 
and our distance from it by cross-bearings was seventeen miles. The latitude of the 
E 
