_ 496 _ advising him not to allow such dreadful neighbours to be on equal terms with him. I told him that he should immediately wage war on them and deprive them of what they had stolen. I offered him help and a fleet for that purpose. This news makes me think that the Turks wanted to take Basra and transfer the fleet they have in Suez there so that they can wage war on us better, being nearer to Ormuz, and because they have large numbers of sailors on the islands of Bahrain and Jolfar.(A) Besides, Basra was fertile and well supplied with food and each time that reinforcements were needed they could be brought down the Euphrates in three days from Babylon or Baghdad, which is the same place. These elements were lacking to them in Suez, which is a desert where even wild animals cannot live. Moreover, by transferring their fleet to Basra they would cause great trouble to Sheikh Ismael(B) and the whole of Persia. Sheikh Ismael wrote to me on 3rd March and sent a present of cloth and silks, while asking me for duties on fifty or sixty horses that he was sending to the Kings and (A) Groups of islands in the Persian Gulf. (B) Xeques-Mair or Sheikh Ismael was the Shah of Persia.
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