'Precis Containing Information in regard to the First Connection of the Hon'ble East India Company with Turkish Arabia, as far as the Same Can Be Traced from the Records of the Bombay Government, together with the Names of the Several British Residents and Political Agents Who Have Been Stationed at Bagdad [Baghdad] and Bussorah [Basra] between A.D. 1646 and 1846, accompanied by Other Information' [‎106r] (215/226)

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of this is, that while a cut or a sluice from the side of the ancient canals
served without labour to disperse its waters over a wide tract of land,
those of the modern canals require in most instances to be raised from
their channel by wheels and bullocks for that purpose, and the quantity
irrigated must therefore be greatly less.
But it is not in agriculture alone that the Pachalic of Bagdad has suf-
ered deterioration, but also from the feebleness and misrule of its Governors.
Commerce is not less affected, and would, if steadily protected and encour
aged, experience at least an equal degree of augmentation and productive
ness. It is a fact worthy of notice that of all the roads which lead to
Bagdad there is not at this moment one which can be pronounced passable
for small parties of travellers, if we except that by water from the Gulf by
Bussorah, and even that is subject to heavy exactions from the Arabs on
the river bank.
The routes from Aleppo and Damascus by Diarheker, Mardeen, and
Mousel is utterly impassable, as is that from Constantinople, by any force
less than that of an army. On the side of Persia, when there is either a
disturbance in that country or an Arab tribe in rebellion here, the petty
border tribes rise up to plunder, putting the fault, if discovered, upon the
contending parties and the roads become shut up. Indeed, there are now
only two to that country, as the whole of Khuzistan has been rendered
impracticable by the tribes of Lour Feilee and Beni Sam.
A country which is almost devoid of population, whose wants are so
few as to be supplied from their own resources, and which at present has
little or no produce to export, must necessarily have but little commerce.
But ought this description to apply to Mesoptamia, once the richest
country in the world, or to Bagdad, once not only the entrepot, but the
consumer of the rarest and most valuable commodities of all quarters of
the world. Even at this period of depression the caravans, which only, in
consequence of the dangers of the road, come so seldom from Damascus and
Aleppo, convey to the city European produce to the amount of at least
£250,000 Sterling a year, or from 30 to 40 lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees of rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. .
The trade with Persia also is very considerable, and if we would
form an estimate of how rapidly a trade with these countries may
advance, let us only look to that of Trebizond, a post so lately opened,
and the roads to which are also beset with banditti, yet the amount of
European manufactures imported there within the last 12 months
is estimated at a million sterling, and this only for the supply of the
districts in its immediate vicinity and that of Erzroom (all sadly
depopulated), and for that of the neighbouring provinces of Persia.
It has already been shown that there would be no want of labourers
were protection to be given to agriculture. It follows that there would
soon be no want of consumers of the goods which commerce might
import. Plague and tyranny have swept away or driven off the
population, but there is a plentilul supply in the neighbourhood which
will rush in to fill the vacuum as soon as encouragement of security
shall have opened the way. Amadia, the late conquest of the Beg of
Rewandooz, is said by the people of the country to contain 12,000
villages, having most of them not less than 100 families each. This is