'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎241] (276/714)

THE SEISTAX QUESTION
241
confess that to my uninstructed vision the military advantages of
such a line would appear to be considerable. I prefer, however to
treat it as a commercial scheme, and to assume that a subscribing
public, as well as generals and colonels, wish to be able to form an
opinion.
We will suppose, therefore, that our railway has reached
Seistan. What will it find, and what will it do when it gets there?
Hostile There are some who protest that the features of the
opinion country are hopelessly unfavourable to commerce or
colonisation. They paint lamentable pictures of the physical
amenities of Seistan. There is a famous wind called the Bad-i-sad-
o-bist-ruz (or wind of 120 days), which blows steadily there from a
■j 101 fh-westerly direction in the months between March and August,
beginning soon after sunrise, abating at midday, and attaining its
maximum strength after sunset. There is also a particularly
honible kind of fly that bites and even kills horses by its bite.
At times of the year the climate, owing to the extent'of marsh
water stagnating under the sun, breeds fevers and ague. The
face of the country is apt to be Hooded; and communication is
only kept up by the precarious method of tutins, a kind of raft
made of reeds lashed together and strengthened by tamarisk
stakes. 1 ^ These critics even go so far as to include the whole
country in the scope of their truculent denunciation, and to ask
wherein lies the beauty or the money value of reed-beds, and sand
hills, and swamps.
Less sweeping, because better informed, and worthy of careful
examination (by reason of the unequalled position of its author),'
Sir h . although unfavourable in character, is the opinion that
Rawimson ] ias been expressed by Sir H. Rawlinson. He has written
as follows:—
Though possessing great natural advantages, the province of Seistan
is, m its present aspect, a wretchedly unhealthy country, only habitable
for a few months in the year, and hardly worth the expense of govern
ment ; while in regard to its strategical value, which is the point of
view that has been chiefly regarded in India, great misapprehension
prevails. So far from Seistan being, as has been so often stated, a
convenient base for aggression upon India from the westward, it is'in
every respect inferior to Herat for that purpose. 2 To the south and
r or a description and illustration, vide Bellew's From the Indus to the Tiaris
p. 227. J '
2 This is true ; but supposing it is thought desirable by an invader for political