How people used to travel the world

important market of the Persian Gulf (H
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 Kermn, 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 _Bsching_, 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.