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4.8  The difficulties at Hormuz

·       Pietro Della Valle

Pietro Della Valle was born in 1586 to a renowned Italian family. Apparently rejected by the woman he wanted to marry he eventually decided to visit the East and agreed with his friend, Doctor Mario Schipano, to send him letters giving him an account of his travels. Schipano would then create a narrative from these letters. These letters give us an important insight to the affairs of many countries and in particular Persia at the turn of the seventeenth century which are complemented by the writings of Jean Chardin in the mid seventeenth century. The first mention of Hormuz is in a letter written in Isfahan in December 1617 in which he describes the religious beliefs of Indians who neither kill nor eat any living thing:

 

On the other hand, they believe that it is good and holy work to give life and liberty to animals, and thus they often buy, at great cost, birds that others have caged and that have been hunted for food, only to free them from death and give them, as they do, their liberty, or the love of God.

This practice is frequent among them, and once it led to a very charming event in Ormuz. A Christian, who was dressed like an Indian, bought from a huntsman some birds to eat at home, but the huntsman believing that he was in fact an Indian, who wished to make the charitable offering of freeing the birds, as soon as he had taken the money, opened the cage and let them go. The Christian started to shout, and when the huntsman was informed how he had been misled, he had not only lost the birds but had to return the money to the Christian, amid roars of laughter from the bystanders.^[1]

 

However it is to the affairs of Hormuz that we now turn our attention. The long homeward journey from Isfahan, which Pietro Della Valle began on 1 October 1621, took him first to Persepolis and Shiraz, from where the route to the Portuguese occupied island of Ormuz had been cut off by the Persian army, engaged with English support in attacking Ormuz. He had hoped to find a small boat to take him to Ormuz en route for Goa, in defiance of the blockade.

 

Late in the evening of 19 November the men who had been sent to the coast to see if any boat would arrive from Ormuz returned to say that they had waited till then, and that they had not seen a single boat come to land, except for a very small one, which they saw lowering its sails to land on shore. But they said, as soon as it became aware of them, and saw there were people on the sea-coast, it turned back and raised sail anew, and though they were hailed several times and assured that the people were friendly, they still refused to come near. And this happened, they believed, because according to what they heard, a few days before when another boat had come to shore, the Persian soldiers who were on guard near to Duser called it, pretending deceptively to be friendly persons who wished to cross to Ormuz. But when the boat reached shore, they seized it, killed two of the crew, and made the rest prisoners. Because of this incident, they thought that boats from Ormuz would no longer trust those soldiers who were on guard there. So it was necessary to think of some other recourse.

Eventually I thought I must delay no longer in Chuchilulion, but retire to some other place, where if we might not be able to move on, at least we could remain more securely. It was known that the English silk caravan had passed through a village near here two days previously, and that some of them had been seen in the port of Combru, with their interpreter Jacob, once my interpreter for a while. And they had all gone to the fortress at Minab, capital of Moghostan, two days’ journey from where I was, to stay there and wait for their ships, so as not to risk their silk in more dangerous spots on the coast, if by chance the Portuguese might want to land and seize or burn it.

I resolved therefore to set off to join them, as they were all my friends, with a mind either to cross to Ormuz or to another Portuguese territory with their help, if possible. For through the favour in which they stood with the King, I hoped it would perhaps be easier for them than for others to do me this service, or else, if that were impossible, at least I could remain in their company and stay on without peril. For as many did not know me I thought I would be able to conceal myself and pass for one of them, so if some recognised me, I would not make the Persians fearful nor could any harm come to me, since the English were on the side of the Persians in that war; indeed, they were the ones in whom alone the King of Persia placed all the hopes of his every victory. However the greatest incentive that I had for making this, for me, still unhappy resolve was the persuasion and insistence of Signora Maani herself. I do not know whether she was drawn on by her imminent fate, or from having heard that in Minab there was a great abundance of fruit of all kinds, and especially of citrus fruits (for which at that time she felt equally both need and desire, through the fastidious lack of appetite caused by her pregnancy), but she so pushed me on in this matter that indeed, beyond the other reasons already adduced and more to please her than anything else, I stuck to that decision. Nor did we know then the worst: that Minab was a place with a most evil climate, where foreigners (especially at certain seasons) almost all either lost their lives, or at least suffered mortal illness. Ignorant of this evil, and, as I believe, meant by heaven to learn about it to our cost, after deliberating as I said, on Wednesday the first day of December in the late hours, a little before nightfall, we left Chuchilulion happily enough and took the lower road towards Minab. ^[2]

On Wednesday, 3 December, well before daytime, we arrived at Minab, a little fortress of scant importance, built on some little hills or mounds, at the foot of which is the village of huts, dispersed among the palm trees. As it was night and we did not know where the English were lodged, having unloaded the baggage, we found a spot on which to settle down for rest and sleep under some trees pending sunrise when we might be able to see where they were.

When it was day, and we had learned that the English were lodged near us in a large house with a garden, which is the palace or the praetorium, so to say, of the Governor of Shiraz, I sent there to summon Jacob the interpreter; and through him I sent to tell those gentlemen that I had arrived, giving them an account of what I needed. After they had been advised of this, they at once sent Signor Robert Gifford, a catholic gentleman and a friend of mine of long standing, to visit me on behalf of all of them, and particularly the resident, Edward Mannox, who was a little indisposed, and therefore did not come himself. After this I went to visit them at the house, and with loving-kindness they (especially the resident or captain) offered me all their help and favour. To cross to Ormuz or to other territory of the Portuguese, they told me, was impossible, for at that time the Portuguese would not even let a bird through, let alone a boat.

They added that the war had to be pursued very vigorously, and not only in Kesem (where the King of Persia had ordered the war to waged continuously for the next year or two to come, or till the fortress that the Portuguese had built there was taken), because the Portuguese also wished to cross to Ormuz to take the island. And for this purpose a huge army had come to the sea coast to await the arrival of the English ships, with which the Persians wished to prevail by force in this way. They, the English, could not refuse to do this, for otherwise they would not be allowed to ship the silk; but on the contrary, if they served him, he had ordered that they were to be given whatever munitions and provisions might be needed, and that they should also be paid for all the losses they received through the war; and even for the delay in transporting the silk, with interest, if by chance it were not able to go to England that year. For the King desired that their ships, or at least part of them, should not leave Persia that year, but should remain, defying the Portuguese, till the war was brought to its end.

And the order of war was that the English fleet should engage in battle all the Portuguese vessels, large and small, during which time the Persians with their boats (which were not very suitable for combat, but only for ferrying), would cross to the island of Ormuz without hindrance; and this they could not do without the help of the English, since the Portuguese fleet, especially the galliots and oared galleys, did not permit it.

The King further ordered that the Persians should cross over to Ormuz in such numbers that he hoped thereby to take the fortress; and if not, then at least to ruin it and sack the city and all the island. To which end, he had ordered the Governor of Shiraz that he should not go with him to the war of Chorasan, which up to the time I left Isfahan His Majesty was waiting poised to invade, but should remain in his own states with all his troops to devote himself to the war of Ormuz, till the outcome was resolved. The English resident added therefore that, for the time being, I could not consider crossing to those parts, but needed to wait for the end of those manoeuvres and the arrival of their ships, when matters would be brought to a head. At that conjuncture, if by chance either peace succeeded or leave was given for some Persian or English ship to go to Arabia to some place, if not belonging to the Portuguese, at least neighbouring and friendly to them, he would then use every diligence to help me should there be some way for me to proceed. And if not, if I found it acceptable, I would always be able to proceed with the English ships to Surat in India, and from there, if I did not wish to go with them as far as England in Europe, I could betake myself by land to Goa, or wherever I pleased.^[3]

 

While the siege of Hormuz continued, Pietro Della Valle unable to travel remained in Minab with the English. The above plate depicts the Persian soldiers being repulsed by the Portuguese, an event mentioned above by Della Valle. Imam Quli Khan was the son of Allahvirdi Khan, the commander-in-chief of the Shah’s military forces and governor of Fars.^[4] While in Minab Della Valle’s wife fell ill and on the 28 December 1621 he bade farewell to the English Resident Edward Monnox and Robert Gifford who were departing on English ships at Kuhestek. Two days later his wife died. Della Valle was determined to give his wife a Christian burial in Italy but knowing that an English ship would not carry a coffin, he returned to Shiraz where he remained for another year.