18th century chart of the Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, engraved by Guillaume Dela Haye, naming Bahrain but with no sign of the Qatar Peninsula. The inset shows Kharg Island, the site of a Dutch trading port from 1753-1766, off Bandar Rig in Persia. Après de Mannevillette (1707-1780), made a voyage to China in 1728, using new instruments to correct the latitudes of places en route. He then compiled a new sea atlas, the 'Le Neptune Oriental', with much-corrected charts. However the Persian Gulf was not a welcoming place for European ships: the Arabian coast is marked 'peu connu' (little known).