The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most important market of the Persian Gulf (H.  C.)], stood upon the mainland.  A few years later it was transferred to the island which became so famous, under circumstances which are concisely related by Abulfeda:—­“Hormuz is the port of Kerman, a city rich in palms, and very hot.  One who has visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city.  At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest order.” (In Buesching, IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321, found Hormuz “on an island some 5 miles distant from the main.”  Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich city.

The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described; but I could find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of the more ancient city, though the existence of its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little fort called Cuxstac (Kuhestek of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site.  An application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me:—­

“The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao.  They are extensive (though in large part obliterated by long cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel Pelly.  They are about 6 or 7 miles from the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them.  The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which is still navigable.  Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the ruins.  From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three farsakhs.  It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where you land to go up to Minao. Hormuzdia was the name of the region in the days of its prosperity.  Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as Jerunia, and Old Hormuz town as Jerun.” (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.) “The town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia.”  In these new and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta.  The former, writing in the 12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city.  The latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as three farsakhs. (Edrisi, I. 424; I.  B. II. 230.)