The area of Karachi was known to the ancient Greeks.
Nearchus, who commanded
Alexander the Great's naval fleet, mentioned a hilly island by the name of
Morontobara and an adjacent flat island named
Bibakta, which colonial historians identified as Karachi's Manora Point and
Kiamari (or
Clifton), respectively, based on Greek descriptions. Both areas were islands until well into the colonial era, when silting in led to them being connected to the mainland. According to the British historian
John Eliot, parts of the city of
Karachi and the island of Manora at
port of Karachi constituted the city of
Debal. Manora was mentioned by the
Ottoman admiral,
Seydi Ali Reis, in his 1554 book
Mir'ât ül Memâlik.
Manora Fort was built by the
Talpur dynasty in 1797 in order to protect the port, which handled trade with
Oman and
Bahrain. The fort was used to repel
attacks by Qasimi pirates who threatened and sometimes raided Karachi Harbor in the early 19th century. Accounts of piracy have been contested, and piracy may have been simply used as a
casus belli for the
East India Company to seize control of the Persian Gulf region. On 1 February 1839, a British ship,
HMS Wellesley (1815), anchored off the island of Manora. On 3 February, the ship opened fire on the fort. When British troops stormed the fort, they reportedly found it guarded by four or five men who had no guns to fire back with, and so the fort quickly surrendered and Karachi captured. In 1888, the old fort was mostly removed, and the battery reinforced. The Manora Point Lighthouse was designed by Canadian engineer Alain-Chartier-de-Lotbiniere Joly de Lotbinière, and completed in 1889 to assist vessels approaching Karachi harbor. After Pakistan's independence from Britain, the island of Manora was selected as a main base of the
Pakistan Navy, with berths for naval vessels located along the eastern edge of the island, and has been governed as a military cantonment. The opening of the new
Jinnah Naval Base at
Ormara, 250 kilometers away, has meant that approximately half of the naval vessels have moved away from Manora. == Tourism ==