harbor is
spacious, circular, deep, and calm, but its entrance is narrow. They called it,
in the natives' language, 'The Ladies' Pool,' since a lady was the first
sovereign of this district. When they had got safe through the rocks, they met
great waves, and the sea running strong; and moreover it seemed very hazardous
to sail seaward of the cliffs. For the next day, however, they sailed with an
island on their port beam, so as to break the sea, so close indeed to the beach
that one would have conjectured that it was a channel cut between the island
and the coast. The entire passage was of some seventy stades. On the beach were
many thick trees, and the island was wholly covered with shady forest. About
dawn, they sailed outside the island, by a narrow and turbulent passage; for
the tide was still falling. And when they had sailed some hundred and twenty
stades they anchored in the mouth of the river Arabis. There was a fine large harbor by its mouth; but there was no drinking water; for the mouths of the
Arabis were mixed with sea-water. However, after penetrating forty stades
inland they found a water-hole, and after drawing water thence they returned
back again. By the harbor was a high island, desert, and round it one could
get oysters and all kinds of fish. Up to this the country of the Arabeans
extends; they are the last Indians settled in this direction; from here on the
territory, of the Oreitans begins.
The Manora Island and was visited by Ottoman admiral Seydi
Ali Reis and mentioned in his book Mir'ât ül Memâlik in 1554. According to the
British historian Eliot, parts of city of Karachi and the island of Manora at port
of Karachi constituted the city of Debal. The island was the site of a small
fort constructed in the eighteenth century when the port of Karachi traded with
Oman and Bahrain. The fort was stormed by the British in 1839 because of the
strategic location of Karachi. Although the fort is
