'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎13] (24/360)

INTRODUCTION
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record has unfortunately not tended to its general compre
hension or appreciation.
" The Sistan question, though deferred, had not dropped,
and both the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. and Government of India con
sidered the time ripe for its disposal on the lines before
laid down. Accordingly the Mission,, reverting to its
function of arbitration, took its departure again for the
East. Instead, however, of entering Persia as before on the
north, and risking the likely hindrances to progress ever
in reserve at Tehran, it adopted the Indian overland route
to Bombay, thence proceeding to Bunder Abbas in the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , there to find a fairly direct road to the scene
of dispute. To this may be added that the Arbitrator
delivered his award at the Persian capital in August 1872,
and that an appeal was at once lodged against it by the
Persian Government, and afterwards by the Amir ; that no
case for reversal of decision was admitted; and that
eventually acceptance on both sides was notified,"*
The above rough outline of a personal experience in
Eastern Persia and adjacent tracts, at a time when the
survey and prefix "British" had not been applied to a
consolidated Baluchistan, must be my warrant for offering
an opinion on the work of more recent explorers. Whilst
visiting Kerman in January 1866, little did I dream that
an English lady would, about a quarter of a century later,
not only find a pleasant residence in that city, but pass
peacefully through the less civilised Bampur, on an English
side-saddle, to join the camp of a Boundary Commission as
far east as Quetta. No need have we now to turn back for
information to old records of travel such as supplied by
Pottinger, Grant, and Christie. All these have been
supplemented by up-to-date labours. Our relations with
* Quarterly Review, No. 351, January 1893, pp. 187-88.