File 1377/1905 Pt 1 'Perso-Baluch Frontier: Frontier Demarcation' [‎189r] (149/188)

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Telegram, No. 4732 F., dated the 15th December 1904.
From—The Foreign Secretary, Calcutta,
To— E. M. Gk.a.xt Duff, Esq., His Britannic Majesty’s Charge d’ Affaires, Tehran.
Your telegram 216, 12th December. We will wait for Sir Hardinge’s
yiews.
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[Confidential.]
Copy of a letter No. 735, dated Quetta, the 6 th December 1904.
From—The Hon’ble Major J. Ramsay, C.I.E., Officiating Agent to the Governor-
General in Baluchistan,
To—The Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department.
I have the honour to forward, for the information of the Government of
India, a copy of the diary of Mr. T. O. Hughes, Officiating Political Assistant,
Chagai, for the week ending the 24th November 1904.
2. I have asked Colonel McMahon to arrange for a local enquiry into
the incident referred to in paragraph 3 of Mr. Hughes’s diary, and to report
the facts to the Government of India. Mr. Hughes being in charge of the
Chagai office in addition to his ordinary duties as Assistant District Superin
tendent of Police, Nushki, I am unable to send him to Mirjawa to test the
accuracy of the report.
Diary of T. O. Hughes, Esq. Officiating Political Assistants
Chagai, No. 42, for the week ending the 24th November
1904.
ITth November 1904.—Kishingi to Nushki.
18^-24^ November. —Halt.
2. Sufficient rain is reported to have fallen round Dalbandin and Chagai
on the 12 th instant for Khushkaba cultivation.
3. On the 24th a telegram was received from Subadar Nur Muhammad,
Thanadar of Mirjawa, to the effect that the Governor of Khwash visited Saindak
on the 21st instant to send a telegram to Bam; that the Levy Thanadar of
Saindak threatened to arrest him for entering British territory; and that he
returned enraged to Mirjawa, where he burnt a quantity of bhoosa which had
been bought and stored there for the use of the British Commissioner, Seistan
Arbitration Commission.
He also issued orders that the garrison of the British thana at Mirjawa
should not be allowed to draw water from the stream which is the only water-
supply at Mirjawa.
Sqbadar Nur Muhammad in his telegram also states that, with great
difficulty, he persuaded the Governor of Khwash not to bring this order into
force for fifteen days.
On receipt of Subadar Nur Muhammad’s telegram, I telegraphed to the
British Commissioner in Seistan, asking him to arrange with the Persian
officials that water shall not be prohibited to the garrison of the Mirjawa Thana.
The question of the Persians attempting to prohibit water to the Mirjawa
Thana is somewhat serious, as the stream in question, which is a mile from the
British thana, is the only water-supply, and is stated by the Persians to be in
Persian territory.
In May last, a Persian Customs official visited Mirjawa, and objected to
Subadar Nur Muhammad and his men taking water from the Mirjawa stream.
I was myself at Saindak at the time as Assistant District Superintendent of
Police, and reported the fact to Colonel McMahon, and asked him to arrange with
the Yamin-i-Nizam that no questions of water should be raised until the Mir
jawa boundary was settled. Colonel McMahon replied that he did not at that