File 1880/1904 Pt 1 'Perso-Afghan Frontier: - Seistan Arbitration.' [‎24v] (53/520)

Briefly stated, the Amir claimed a line from Koh-i-Malik Siah ^ to Band-i-
Kuhak including Ramrud in Afghan
territory. (The Afghan Commissioner *
claimed possession also of Hauzdar and
Knntdar.) Prom Band-i-Kuhak their line
followed the Helmund and Nad Ali chan
nel to a point ahont one and-a-half miles from Nad Ali near Burj-i-As and
Deh Ido. It was contended that this is the point at which, on Sir Frederick
GoldsmhPs map, the boundary line leaves the river and that therefore the
Afghan boundary should run from here in a straight line to Siah Koh.
* The Afghan Commissioner was Akhundzada
Fakir Muhammad Khan, Governor of Chakansur.
Associated with him as such was Musa Khan of
Herat.
A. H. McMahon.
24. So much for the rival claims. It will be seen that the Persians based
theirs on their own interpretation of the Goldsmid award and professed igno
rance of his map, while the Afghans had never seen the award and insisted on a
strict adherence to the map.
25. The first thing to be done by this Mission was to make an accurate
survey of the country. Even the latest
Accurst, new .urvey of Se.etan earned out. Government of India maps were found to
be very inaccurate, a fact which is easily explained when one realises the very
serious difficulties which this country offers to accurate survey work owing to
its dead flatness and general absence of prominent points, together with, in
some places, dense tamarisk jungle, wide stretches of water and high reeds, and
in others vast expanses of waterless desert. It was only with great effort and
after a considerable time with our large staff of able surveyors that these diffi
culties were overcome and accurate maps on scales of 4 miles and 1 mile=l
inch were prepared. It was hardly surprising, therefore, to find that the
country as shown by our maps differed largely from that shown in earlier maps
prepared under less favourable circumstances, and especially from that shown
in the Goldsmid map. It is a matter of much greater surprise that the map
made under such very unfavourable circumstances by Major Beresford Lovett
in 1872 is so approximately accurate as it is.
26. The next step after completing a new survey of the country was to
determine with its aid the course of the
o f ttllTHr.f a ™Srp M ' 8aefi “ ,ti0D boundary line as defined in the Goldsmid
award. Having established the fact that
the Helmund at the time of that award ran along the present Nad Ali and
Sikhsar Channels, the boundary presented little difficulty up to the point where
it is said by Sir F. Goldsmid to enter the Naizar.
Local evidence and the unerring proofs afforded by surveys and levels
established the fact that, at the time of the Goldsmid Mission, the point where
the Helmund entered the Naizar is at the edge of the tract of mainland just
north of Deh Ali Jangi and Ganguzar. The limits of the old Naizar can be
still distinguished by the dry stumps of reed roots and the absence of
■f New tamarisk jungle is rapidly growing up
in the old Naizar, and I notice a great difference
in the aspect of the country during the last two
years. It is becoming increasingly difficult to
trace the old Naizar in places.
A. H. McMahon.
old f tamarisk jungle which covers the
mainland. From just west of this point
the mainland jutted out northwards into
the Naizar in a long narrow spit on which
the Deh Buzi and Takht-i-Shah villages
are now situated, and which terminates at a point known as Shalghami. The
Afghan Commissioner has himself admitted that this spit was dry mainland
and not Naizar at the time of the Goldsmid Mission. Applying Sir F. Goldmid’s
definition to the actual conditions of the country, the boundary line of his award
ran along the eastern edge of this spit to Shalghami, thus leaving Takht-i-Shah
in Persia.
27. From this point onwards the definition becomes very difficult of
application. As shown by their own accounts of their journey to Lash Juwain,
e Naizar even at the time of the Goldsmid Mission stretched practically
across the whole of that portion of the Hamun tract between Seistan and the
mam and of Lash Juwain. There was a larger area of Hamun to the north
east t an now exists since the Helmund has turned westwards, but then, as
now, the Naizar stretched in places from the southern to the northern shore
an on y m years of high flood is there any wide stretch of open water to which