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‘Military Report on Southern Persia’ [‎16r] (36/154)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (73 folios). It was created in 1900. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: 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. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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Rivers.
From the Kuh-i-Rang or Jehan-Bin, a mountain cluster nearly 13,000
feet high, in the heart of the Bakhtiari country, spring the two most
famous rivers iu Persia, the Karun, a corruption of Kuh-i-Rang, on the south,
and the Zaindah Rud on the east. The former drains towards the Persian
Gulf, the latter flows past Isfahan and eventually becomes lost in the Gav-
khaneh, more commonly known as the Kavh-i-Isfandiran, a salt marsh lying
midway between Isfahan and Yazd. The head waters of the Karun are
in a peak called Haft Tanan. Fourteen miles lower down is a spring
in the Zardah Kuh, called Sar-Chashma-i-Kurang, from which a great
volume of water rushes out of a hole in the bare cliff and joins the main
bed, 5 miles distant. From here to Shustar, a distance of 75 miles as the
crow flies, the Karun follows a sinuous course of 250 miles, falling 9,000 feet
in the interval. Its normal width, even in its upper reaches, is from 50 to
100 yards, but it is sometimes compressed between perpendicular walls 1,000
to 3,000 feet high, whilst in one place, at the bridge of Ali Kuh, its
volume is contracted within a rift only 9 feet across. For the first 100 miles
of its course it runs south-east. Then, with a sharp bend, it turns south-west
and cuts a 50-mile channel through transverse ranges ; after that for nearly
100 miles more it flows north-west, in a direction inverse, but parallel, to its
original course ; it then turns south, enters the plain of Akili by a gorge,
crosses the Kuh-i-Fedelek above Shustar, by means of another defile, and
finally debouches upon the plains of Arabistan. The most important of its
tributaries, in this upper section, is the Ab-i-Bazuft, or Rudbar, which flows from
the north-west in a bed running almost parallel with its own upper waters.
Other noticeable confluents are a river from the east receiving the over
flow of the Chighakhor lake, and a stream from the north, called Ab-i-
Beheshtabad, or Darkash Warkash, which drains the Chahar Mahal. The
Ab-i-Sabz (also called Dahinur, Dinaran and Ab-i-Gurab) flows in near
Dopulan. The Ab-i-Bors, from the lofty Kuh-i-Dinar range, flows in from the
south. From this point to Shustar are many smaller tributaries, including
several salt or naphtha tainted streams. Attempts have been made, in the past,
to divert the waters of the Karun to the bed of the Zaindah Rud. This project
was initiated by Shah Abbas in the 16th century. Major Sawyer estimat
ed that less than one-twentieth of the entire work had been completed before
its abandonment.
Emerging from the hills immediately to the north of Shustar the river
bifurcates ; the Ab-i-Shateit, or Karun proper, turns sharply to the south,
while the Ab-i-Gargar, an artificial canal, bends to the east, the 2 streams
reuniting at Band-i-Kir. Here also the Karun receives its main affluent, the
Ab-i-Diz or Dizful river. At the point of confluence the Ab-i-Diz is about 80
yards wide, the Ab-i-Sbateit about 150, and the Ab-i-Gargar about 60.
The Ab-i-Diz is joined, at a point 12 miles above Band-i-Kir, by the
Shapur or Shaur river, a tributary which formerly flowed direct into the
Karun, joining it at one time a little below Wais and at a later period near
Ahwaz. From Band-i-Kir to Ahwaz the river is open to steam traffic,
but between there and Bandar Nasri the channel is interrupted, and naviga
tion is impeded, by the Ahwaz rapids. At Muhammera the Hafar, a
channel 2 miles long, connects the Karun with the Shatt-al-Arab. The Bah-
mishir, the original mouth of the Karun, runs down to the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. from
a point about 2 miles above Muhammera, parallel to the Shatt-al-Arab,

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Content

Confidential military report compiled in the Intelligence Branch, Department of the Quarter Master General of India, by Captain George Samuel Frederick Napier, 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, Staff Captain. The report was printed in Simla at the Government Central Printing Office, 1900.

The volume begins with a preface, written by Lieutenant-Colonel A Barrow, Assistant Quartermaster General, Intelligence Branch, Simla, on 12 April 1900 (folio 8).

Part one of the volume comprises ten chapters (I-X) covering:

  • geography (general description, coastline, land frontiers, mountain systems, rivers and lakes)
  • harbours
  • communications (roads, maritime, inland water, and telegraphs)
  • climate (general description, rainfall, winds in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , pathology of Southern Persia)
  • resources (agricultural, commercial, industrial, labour, production, animals, and transport)
  • ethnography (races and religions, and languages)
  • history (early history, Russo-Persian wars, Anglo-Persian wars up to 1856, the Anglo-Persian War of 1856-57, the subsequent history of Southern Persia, and commercial history)
  • administration (systems, administrative divisions, financial system, money, weights and measures)
  • naval and military (navy, army, fighting material, and arms)
  • political (internal and external relations, British representatives in Southern Persia, and representatives of other powers in Southern Persia)

Part two of the volume comprises four appendices (A-D) covering:

  • climate (an abstract of Fahrenheit thermometer readings)
  • resources (bazaar prices, average rates of transport, rates of freight, pack transport rates, labour, animal and crop resources in some of Southern Persia’s principal towns and villages);
  • ethnography (list of the principal tribes of Arabistan, and lists of tribes of other regions)
  • a ‘gazetteer of some of the more important towns and villages of Southern Persia, on or near lines of communication’

Four maps are also included in the volume’s front pocket (folios 2-5).

Extent and format
1 volume (73 folios)
Arrangement

There is a contents page at the front of the volume (ff 9-10), and an alphabetical cross index of roads (ff 10-13). Both refer to the volume’s original pagination, with the cross index referring specifically to content in the section on roads under chapter II, Communications (ff 22-30).

Physical characteristics

Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 75; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio.

Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.

Written in
English in Latin script
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‘Military Report on Southern Persia’ [‎16r] (36/154), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/15/8, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100040905220.0x000025> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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