'Telegraph and travel. A narrative of the formation and development of telegraphic communication between England and India, under the orders of Her Majesty's Government, with incidental notices of the countries traversed by the lines.' [‎252] (289/782)

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had consented to the demands of the Porte,'' and believed
that reply to a despatch forwarded some weeks before
to Constantinople was only waited " to join up the wire
near Khanikin and open throughout."
The facts were these. Colonel Kemball, the British
Resident and Consul-General at Baghdad, after pro
posing every possible combination that seemed likely to
reconcile or allay conflicting claims, hit upon the happy
expedient of turning to account the telegraph poles used
by the litigants respectively, to represent the national
interests involved : that is to say, as the Turks used
iron, and the Persians wooden posts for their respective
lines, it was considered that alternate iron and wooden
posts over the disputed tract would illustrate a mutual
understanding, or perhaps rather the recognition of a
misunderstanding, in a manner at once politically safe
and socially unobjectionable. This arrangement, fortified
by the inevitable exchange of statu quo declarations,
was finally accepted by both parties, and is believed to
be in force at the present day.
On the 20tli January, 1865, Major Champain wrote
from Tehran, 1 little knowing that his report of progress
would no longer interest him to whom they were
usually addressed, giving a more cheery account of his
charge. " We are now open," he said, " and working
with Karmanshah since the 24th December (to say
nothing of one break, which was mended in a day);
with Ispahan since the 2nd of January, and now, again,
with Shiraz. The line is all right to Baghdad, but the
Turks refuse to receive our messages."
His account of the interruption beyond Shiraz made
1 To Col. Patrick Stewart, the news of whose death, on the 19th January,
•lid not reach him there until the 24th idem.