File 2976/1916 Pt 1 'Persia Bunder-Abbas-Kerman telegraph and road' [‎296r] (295/452)

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No. 103, dated Bander Abbas, the 1 st December 1916
From Major E. T. R.oh, R.E., the Officer in Charge, Persia Survey Party,
To—The Chief of the General Staff.
29
No. 105-Confidential, dated the 4th December 1916.
From-MiJOE E^T. Rich, R.E., the Officer in Charge, Persia Survey Party, Bunder
To—The Chief of the General Staff, Army Headquarters, Delhi.
As ordered in your No. ^ 15407-Confidential of 24th November 1916
I have the houour to send herewith a narrative account of my progress up to date
together with a Iv ote as to the relative desirability of the various routes
from Bunder^ Abbas to Nerman for first class motor traffic compiled from
local information and reports of previous reconnaissances
I send with the report four photographs to illustrate the Tang-i-Zindan
and one copy of p^odidoo s ^ ee t of Southern Persia on which I have marked
road and railway routes.
Narrative Report of Major E. T. Rich, R.E., in charge of the Rersia
Survey Party, surveying for a Motor Road between Bunder Abbas and
Kerman, dated 4th December 1916.
1 . I left Simla on November the 8 th and proceeded to Debra Dun to
see the Surveyor-General leaving agai*n on November the 9th for Karachi,
whence I sailed for Bunder Abbas on November the 12 th and reached there
on November the 15th.
2 . On November 16th the Vice-Consul at Bunder Abbas, Mr. Howson,
called together the leading merchants engaged in forwarding trade to Kerman
and Yezd, with a view to ascertaining from them the routes which caravans
usually follow in winter and summer and the causes which led them to
follow those routes.
3. We examined them very thoroughly and arrived at the following
conclusions; practically the whole of the caravans from Bunder Abbas
to Kerman now follow the direct route through the Tang-i-Zindan—Dau-
latabad and Baft (Route 143 of Routes in Persia, Volume IV) except for
three months during the winter when snow lies too deep on the Kafanu
Pass which is 9,400 feet high. During these three months caravans abandon
the direct route, and go either via Khanu along route 141 or via the
Tangi-i-Zagh and Saidabad along route 144, though very few caravans
attempt the latter route nowadays from fear of attack by Baharlu raiders,
whose country lies close to the west of this route. Caravans for Kerman
follow these three routes only and never go the roundabout route 139 via
Rigan.
I enquired if wheeled vehicles had ever been taken up any of these
three routes to Kerman and was told that in the memory of my informants
about 20 years ago a big 40-pounder gun with limber had been drawn by
horses up route 144 through the Tang-i-Zagh to Kerman and that three or four
years ago, two carriages for the Governor of Kerman had been drawn up route
141 via Khanu but they all agreed that no wheeled vehicles had ever gone
or could go by route 143 through the Tang-i-Zindan owing entirely to the
difficulties of the Tang-i-Zindan beyond which the road was fairly easy the
whole way to Kerman.
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