'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎630] (699/714)

630
PERSIA
pierced or crossed by a railway at an expenditure out of all propor
tion to the probable return. The fact 'that Bushire, in spite of its
scanty recommendations as a harbour, is the principal trading port
on the south coast, has tempted people to suppose that it must be
the necessary terminus of a Trans-Persian line and to ignore the
physical obstacles of which I have spoken. The existence and pro
bable exploitation of a far easier and more advantageous avenue of
entry a little further to the west will relegate the Bushire-Shiraz
proposal to the limbo from which it ought never to have emerged.
I he objections that render impracticable this particular section of
the trunk line from north to south do not, of course, apply to a
line ^ from Teheran to Isfahan, which is quite feasible, and may
possibly be realised in the future.
The easier and more commodious route, to which I have alluded,
is, of course, that from the upper waters of the Karun river, through
n. Mo- the big towns of the grain-producing provinces of West
Buruj'i'rd- 1 1 >ers i ;i in the direction of the capital. There appears to
Teheran be a consensus of opinion that the railroad most likely to
pay in Persia would be one starting from Shushter (or, perhaps,
more probably from Mohammerah), and running northwards
through the Lur country to Khorremabad and Burujird, whence,
on the one hand, connection would be easily established with Ker-
manshah or Hamadan on the line from Baghdad to Teheran, and,
on the other, via Sultanabad with Kum, and thence with the
capital. The new southern port of Persia would be several
hundred miles nearer to the capital, and even to Isfahan, than
is Bushire, and would be separated from neither by any such
impracticable barrier as the Itotals of the Shiraz-Bushire caravan
road. 1 urthermore, besides attracting to itself the export and
impoit trade of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , such a line would traverse one
of the richest corn-growing regions of Persia, would serve large
c ities, and open up a new approach from the south and the sea to as
far north as Azerbaijan. In other words, local would be super
added to foreign traffic; and from their united proceeds a surplus
ought in time to be struck out. Nor, as I have indicated in speaking
of the road at present in course of construction along the same line,
should the prospects of passenger traffic on such a railway be over
looked. In Persia, the principal streams of human movement are
those that circulate between the shrines and tombs of the famous
dead, I he access to no fewer than five such holy resorts would be