_ 131 _ many supplies so that if they need to, they can withdraw into it. At the point of the estuary, about half a league from the city there is one of their mosques, in which they have built a lookout with battlements, in which there are ten men with a small number of blunderbusses. They allow nothing to enter or leave without the King’s permission and they keep watch very well, as well as in all the islands around. Of the rest of the country they have taken possession only of [Gizar]. If they do not disturb the rest of this country, it is because they see a great many men there, and because it is troublesome for them to capture. All the same I tell you that sooner or later they will have to capture it. Up to the present they are all friends, and they come and go with all kinds of supplies as before. The Turks clearly state that in any case they will capture all the islands of [Gizar] that if they do not wish to be their friends those who are on bad terms with them will be their captives. Others say that the Turk, from the information he has, gave orders that [Gizar] should not be captured in order not to deprive Basra of supplies and many other things which come from these islands. So, I do not know which of these it is, nor which it will be. The people of [Gizar] laugh,
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