'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎194] (229/714)

194 PERSIA
formally offered to give to Persia, in exchange for Kelat, her share
of the famous and fertile plain of Moghan on the western shore
of the Caspian. The offer was declined. The value of Kelat to
Russia consists, as I have before argued, in its command of the
head waters of the streams that run down to the Atek; and still
more in its position as a central point for controlling the border
tribes, and in its prodigious prestige. Persia is far from willing
to cede this remarkable point of vantage, and guards it with a
jealousy that is in curious contrast to her general apathy and
weakness. No stranger is permitted to enter except with a special
permit from the Shah, and several Russians, as well as myself,
have been baffled in the attempt to penetrate into the interior.
Russian policy in these parts is at present directed to claiming
more and more of the streams that irrigate her possessions on the
plain, and to extending her influence over the border tribes.
Little by little she has crept up the mountain skirts from the
Atek at the bottom, while disputes about the water supply which,
though it fertilises Russian villages, yet flows from Persian sources
and through Persian territory, can always be aggravated into an
excuse for encroachment. Kelat would provide her with a centre
of particular value for either object, and she will remain discon
tented until she possesses it.
In the published treaty between Russia and Persia, which was
concluded in December 1881, and which defined the new boundary
Russo- between Transcaspia and Khorasan, necessitated by the
Persian Russian conquests of that year, the delineation of the
border which commenced at the mouth of the Atrek,
stops abruptly before it reaches the village of Lutfabad, situated
in the Atek below the Persian district of Deregez. Lutfabad was
left to the Persians; but what is the exact frontier eastwards from
this point to Sarakhs on the Tejencl is not ascertainable from any
published document. It is believed to have been settled by a
secret treaty in 1881 or in 1883 between Russia and Persia, to
which I shall later on have occasion to refer; and commissioners are
reported to have passed over the ground and traced it out. The
popular uncertainty, or rather ignorance, upon the point is, however,
an excuse for just such acts of encroachment on the part of the
stronger power as I have sketched in the preceding paragraph.
At Sarakhs we once again touch a definite boundary in the
shape of the Tejend River, which, though known in its upper