His residence at Bombay, a much less healthy place than Sana, was continued so long, that I am strongly inclined to suspect the want of European society may, after all, have numbered among his most powerful reasons for hurrying from Yemen. From this city he forwarded the manuscripts of his deceased companions as well as his own papers, by way of London, to Copenhagen; and at length, on the 8th of December, 1764, set sail in one of the company’s ships of war, bound for Muskat and the Persian Gulf. During this voyage he beheld the surface of the sea for half a German mile in extent covered at night with that luminous appearance which we denominate “phosphoric fires;” and which, according to his opinion, arises entirely from shoals of medusas, which by the English sailors are called “blubbers.” A few days afterward, as they approached the shore of Oman, they were accompanied for a considerable distance by a troop of dolphins, which, by the persevering manner in which they followed the ship, seemed, as Lucian jocularly observes, to be animated by a kind of philanthropy, as when they bore Melicerta and Arion to the shore on their backs. They arrived at Muskat on the 3d of January, 1765; and here Niebuhr, had the interior of Arabia possessed any attractions for him, had once more an opportunity of indulging his curiosity, and fulfilling the original design of the expedition; for, from the humane and polished manners of the people of Oman, travelling was here, he says, attended with no more danger than in Yemen. He preferred, however, ascending the Persian Gulf in an English ship; and therefore, after a stay of a few days, set sail for Abusheher, where he arrived on the 4th of February. Here Niebuhr, who had learned the English language at Bombay, found himself still in the company of one of our countrymen, from whom he obtained a plan of the city, together with much curious and valuable information respecting the country and its inhabitants. This Englishman, whose name was Jervis, spoke, read, and wrote the Persian with fluency, and amused himself with making a collection of manuscripts in that language; among which was the “Life of Nadir Shah,” by his own private secretary Mohammed Mahadi Khan. The authenticity of this work was so highly spoken of in Persia, that Niebuhr was at some pains to procure a copy of it for the King of Denmark’s library; and it was from this copy that Sir William Jones afterward compiled his “History of Nadir Shah,” once celebrated, but now sunk into oblivion. At Abusheher our traveller saw several of that species of cat numbers of which are now brought into Europe from Angola. They were procured from Kermân, and it was said that they would nowhere breed except in those countries in which the shawl goat was found--an opinion which has long been proved to have been erroneous.