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The record is made up of 1 file (388 folios). It was created in 17 Jan 1899-4 Apr 1904. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
Diary No 3 of Major-General Chenevix-Trench, Her Britannic Majes-
tv’s Consul for Seistan.
left Rabat for Hormak, distance
...
... 18 miles.
.reached Girdi Thana
ji
...
... 3 ^ »>
9
,, Kundar
...
... 12 „
„ Warmal
V
...
... 3 ° »
j’
,, Daulatabad
halted
»
...
... 8 „
reached Dandi...
»>
...
... 20 ,,
Nusratabad
»»
...
... ^ M
11 th
12th
13 th
14th
15th
16th
In my last diary, I fully described the whole route from Quetta to Rabat
where our boundary ends, and, 1 hope, showed that there were no real difficulties
to be met on the road by travellers that could not be easily remedied, and w
are in fact now being removed.
From Rabat, the route which now has become a camel path turns north, keep,
ing just within the border line made by General Goldsmid in 1872.
There is nothing particular to mention about the road here, like the road
through Beluchistan it is easy and level. From the between Rabat and
Hormak which passes through the hilly range of the Koh-i- Malik Siah, glimpses
of the real desert are seen lying to the north and east the real desert w ose
terrors have given to the part of country over which the present route runs the
bad name it has suffered from for so many years.
At Hormak there are some good springs and a good camping ground.
Leaving Hormak the road follows the stony bed of a river, which widens out
as it approaches the desert to a delta as through joining the sea, the road leaving
this delta for the first time now traverses real desert, but within a few ™ l!es > tlie
tamarisk shrubs begin to grow up. After 15 miles the desert sand has given
place to soil, dry and uncultivated, covered with “ f-hora” certainly, but merely
cryin^ out for water to become fertile. A few miles more and two domes are
sren on the horizon of the flat country, the first marks the traveller meets of by
gone buildings and soon whole mud villages in desolation and ruin stand out on
the interminable flat country round.
Girdi Thana is reached after a 32 miles march from Hormak. Here is the
beginning of a Thana consisting of two or three demed rooms and a wall, the
commencement of a good fortified serai, which I hope to see in a short time.
All round Girdi Thana are desolate deserted ruined villages within an easy
walk. I visited two or three. They are not buried cities in any sense. 1 hey
are the ordinary villages seen in Seistan, and do not look as though they had been
deserted for as much as a century. Streets walls and domes are all standing. In
places the sand has been driven against the walls but the collapse of the domes
or roofs has had most to say to the ruined appearance.
Near these deserted villages it is easy to see the marks of the walls which
enclosed gardens where now the land is dry and the tamarisk alone flourishes.
Clear and distinct marks show the canals which originally watered this huge
plain, bringing the water of the Helmund I was told that one main canal run-
nincr' west towards Girdi Thana had 17 distributing canals on one side and 17 on
the^other, which shows that the irrigation from the Helmund over this plain is not
a matter of great antiquity but is quite possible now.
The road after leaving Girdi Thana still continues across the unwatered soil
and past more villages which have been left to crumble back into the thirsty soil.
Many were the remarks among my followers that the land over which we rode
was far bette. than any land recently watered by the Chenab Canal system.
About this item
- Content
The file contains papers relating to Seistan [Sistan] and Persia [Iran].
The file includes printed copies of despatches from the Agent to the Governor-General of India and HM Consul-General for Khorasan and Seistan (Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Martindale Temple), to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, with enclosed despatches from Captain Percy Molesworth Sykes to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Marquis of Salisbury). Skyes’s despatches regard matters including: Seistan; trade routes into South-East Persia; the boundary between Persia and Afghanistan, in relation to the River Helmund [Helmand] changing its course (in despatch No. 5, which includes four sketch maps, folios 12, 13, 14 and 15); Sykes’s journey to Birjand (in despatch No. 7, which includes a sketch map on folio 20); the ruling family of Kain, which also governed Seistan, Tabbas and Tun; Sykes’s journey from Seistan to Kerman [Kirman] (in despatch No. 11, which includes a sketch map); and the direct Kerman-Quetta caravan trade that Sykes was trying to establish.
The file also includes copies of the following papers:
- A despatch from Temple to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing a letter from Temple to Sir Henry Mortimer Durand (HM Minister, Tehran), with copies of enclosures, regarding the establishment of a Seistan and Kain consulate
- A letter from Charles Edward Pitman, Director General of Telegraphs, to the Secretary to the Government of India Public Works Department, enclosing a copy of a ‘Report on the Preliminary Survey of the Route for a Telegraph Line from Quetta to the Persian Frontier’ by H A Armstrong, Assistant Superintendent, Indian Telegraph Department, which includes six photographs of views along the route [Mss Eur F111/352, f 52; Mss Eur F111/352, f 53; Mss Eur F111/352, f 54; Mss Eur F111/352, f 55; Mss Eur F111/352, f 56; and Mss Eur F111/352, f 57], and a map showing the proposed route of the telegraph line [Mss Eur F111/352, f 59]
- Letters from Hugh Shakespear Barnes, Agent to the Governor-General in Baluchistan, to the Secretary to the Government of India Foreign Department, enclosing copies of the diary of the Political Assistant, Chagai, for the weeks ending 16 February, 28 February, and 8 March 1900
- Diary No. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 of Major-General George Frederick Chenevix-Trench, HM Consul for Seistan (Diary No. 6 includes a sketch map, folio 86)
- A copy of a ‘Report on Reconnaissances Made while Attached to the Seistan Arbitration Commission’ by W A Johns, Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways, Bombay
- A copy of the report ‘Notes on Persian Seistan’, compiled by Captain Edward Abadie Plunkett, and issued by the Government of India Intelligence Branch, Quarter-Master General’s Department
- Two copies of map signed by Plunkett titled ‘Persian Seistan-Cultivated Area’ [Mss Eur F111/352, f 270]
- A booklet entitled ‘Notes on the Leading Notables, Officials, Merchants, and Clergy of Khorasan, Seistan, Kain, and Kerman.’
- Printed copies of letters from the Government of India Foreign Department to the Secretary of State for India (Lord George Francis Hamilton), relating to the maintenance of British interests in Persia, dated 4 September 1899 and 7 November 1901 (the former with an enclosure of a minute by the Viceroy on Seistan).
- Extent and format
- 1 file (388 folios)
- Arrangement
The papers are arranged in approximate chronological order from the front to the rear of the file.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 390; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The file contains one foliation anomaly, f 301A
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/352
- Title
- 'Seistan'
- Pages
- front, front-i, 2r:51v, 58r:58v, 60r:112r, 113r:125v, 147r:218r, 218r, 219r:269v, 271r:301v, 301Ar, 301Av, 302r:388v, 389v:390r, 389r, back
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence