'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎387] (440/714)

THE JN'OlfTUEKN PROVINCES
387
On the other haucl, it is well to pause for a moment and consider
whether the movement, if contemplated, would be either so advan-
Periis Of tageous or so simple as at first sight appears. Let it be
Sfrnate that there is not in the same parallel of
latitude a more unhealthy strip of country in the world.
The Russians were expelled by the climate before. Gilan has'
proved a graveyard to most Europeans whose lot has cast them
there. In the fifth trading expedition of the British Moscovy Com-
P an f ^ 0 . 1 f 0rtl1 P ® rsia 111 1568-1574 a.d ., five of the English factors
died of illness and two were murdered in the space of five weeks Sir
Robert Sherley and Sir Dodmore Cotton succumbed in the manner
already related in 1627. When Elton and Hanway revived the
British trade with the Caspian in the eighteenth century, five out of
the fifteen Europeans engaged in the traffic died at Kazvin between
1740 and 1744. In the latter year we hear of all the Europeans
m Resht as very ill with agues, distemper, &c. The recent occu
pants of the British and Russian consulates at Resht tell a similar
tale. ^ It may, therefore, be accepted that for Europeans an occupa
tion m force or a colonisation of either Gilan orMazanderan would
be an extremely risky experiment. Any such invaders would be
compelled to seek the higher altitudes, and to leave the lower levels
to the acclimatised indigenous population. Such a partition might
be possible, m the event of the absolute quiescence of the latter ;
but it might also become in the highest degree perilous if the
natives resisted a foreign usurpation, and profited bv the extra
ordinary natural advantages for defence of their jungles, and defiles
and mountains.
ft may be averred without fear of contradiction that a more
difficult country either to carry or to hold in the face of armed
Perils of opposition can nowhere be found. Eraser, who twice
country traver sed it from end to end, summed up its strategic
properties in the following language :
Certainly I never saw, nor can I imagine, a stronger or more
impracticable country in a military point of view than these provinces.
S 'j. 1 ' 6 ' mac * e ^ads, there are none, except the sreat Causewav
made of old by Shah Abbas, and this has now so nearly disappeared
useless r f eqUlre , S . t a 8 aide 10 flnd " i a " d e"® when found it would be
eless, for military purposes, from the numerous breaks and gaps in
i s course and from the impenetrable jungle which surrounds it on all
sides, and affords cover for all sorts of ambuscades and surprises.
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