'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎114r] (232/706)

HAMADAN
215
gold found is supposed to be from the old coins and buildings on the site of
this ant lent capital.
As regards the tanneries, Mr. Rabino states that |th of the population
lives and works in the tanneries, and that hides are imported from all over
Persia.
The Nizam-ul-Mulk owns 2 Karaguzlu regiments of infantry of a
Military nominal strength of 1,000 each. The Zia-ul-
Mulk has 1 regiment, and Mansur-ud-Dauleh
1 regiment, the Karaguzlu Mukhbiran regiment ; Hamadan supplies one
other corps, the Fadavi regiment of Turks and Lurs (1912).
Gendarmerie .—In the beginning of June 1913, there were about 80
gendarmes at Hamadan.
The province is divided into 4 buluhs or districts ; namely :—The biduk
Administration. °l D t ar |!f in the <> £ Mehaban, (q.v.),
the buluk of Sardarud (q.v.) and the bnluk of
Durab-wa-Tawabeh (q.v.).
Hamadan is a telegraph station on the Tehran-Khaniqin line ; there are
Communications. branches from here to Salma, Khurramabad via
Burujird and Sultana bad and Nihavand.
Good k ifdeh roads lead from this city to other large ones, and all kdfilehs
have to pass through it.
Caravans go every month to Sulaimanleh from Hamadan, and occasion
ally to Panjvm.
The importance of Hamadan, from which so many roads radiate in all
directions, both commercially and strategically, has always been great, and,
now that the Tigris valley railway scheme has come into the field of practi
cal politics, is greater than ever before (1902.)
The Muhammareh-Khurramabad line may still further increase its im
portance. (1912.)
Commercially there is no railway line in Persia that would appear to
have more favourable branches for trade than
one linking Baghdad with Khaniqln, Kirman-
shah, Hamadan and eventually Tehran.
The pilgrim traffic to Karbala also passes along this route and would form
a large increasing asset for a line which would also tap the fertile grain
district of Kirmanshah and Hamadan.
Baghdad-Hamadan
way.
Rail-
In 1884, a Persian gentleman obtained a concession from the Turkish
Government for a railway line from Khaniqln to Baghdad and Karbala
and went to London to get it taken up, but failed to find support and even
tually abandoned the scheme. The concession then lapsed.
Then in the early nineties the Germans thought of a railway from Tehran
to the Turkish frontier, but the scheme was given up.
In 1895, a German, Mr. Moral, obtained a concession for the construction
of a road from Tehran to Khaniqln and the establishment of wheeled traffic
on it.
He hoped also to secure a similar concession from Kkaniqln to Baghdad,
but failed to get it. The scheme was dropped and the concession lapsed. *
In 1897, a French syndicate applied for the Tehran-Khaniqin road con
cession and the establishment of autocar traffic on it. The Persian