'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎174] (209/714)

174
PERSIA
advantage in their passport system, by which the identity r
nationality, and claims of an applicant can at once be ascertained.
The British have never adopted this most useful of systems, and
an immense amount of labour and time is spent in investigating
the titles of the claimant to British protection, which are frequently
disputed by the Persian authorities, and can only be vindicated
with trouble and delay. It is worth while considering whether in
Persia, at any rate, the passport system might not advantageously
be introduced. 1 It would, I believe, be welcomed by the Persian
Government.
There is very little to be seen in the neighbourhood of Meshed.
The mosque of Khojah Rabi I have already described. The Musallah,
Tus originally built in a.d . 1G99 for the celebration of the feast
of Kurban, and described by MacCTregor as the only ruin
of any note about the city, has lost any note that it may once have
had by being a total ruin. Visitors will possibly care to ride out
to the remains of Tus, the predecessor of Meshed, fifteen miles
distant in a north-westerly direction. Persian legend is very busy
with the antiquity and history and vicissitudes of this once famous
city. The present remains, which are very clearly to be traced,
are those of a walled Arab city, quite four miles in circumference,
and of a citadel in its north-east corner. In the centre is a large
ruined structure under a dome, which was no doubt once a mosque,
but is now known as the Nakkara-Khaneh or Drum Tower.
O'Donovan, who spent some time in examining and describing the
ruins, mistook this building for the tomb of the great national poet
Firdusi, 2 and even identified his coffin. 3 The poet's grave lay
beneath a far humbler structure which was visible seventy years
ago ; but had disappeared long before O'Donovan visited it, and
been replaced by no more distinctive memorial than a field of wheat.
Meshed is connected by telegraph, as I have already shown,
with Kelat-i-Nadiri on the north, and with Kuchan and Bujnurd
1 I have since heard that the Afghans have been allowed by the British
Government to accept Russian passports through the medium of the Persian
officials, a concession which I am unable either to justify or to explain.
2 Firdusi, born about 940 a.d., died 1021, was employed by Mahmud of Ghuzni
to write the history of Persia in verse. The result was the Shah Nameh, or Book
of Kings, in which the poet discharged his duty in 60,000 Pehlevi verses, contain
ing only two Arabic words, although two out of every three words in ordinary
usage at the time were of Arabic—i.e. non-Iranian—origin,
3 The Merv Oasis, vol. ii. pp. 14-16. Compare Khanikoff, pp. 31, 109-110.