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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.
He gives you the idea of a disappointed man. He has no feelings of
loyalty towards Persian rule and cannot become a British subject. He says it
was his bad luck that we abandoned Kandhar, where he would have served us
under Sir O. St. John.
The conversations of both himself and those of his attendants who were
formerly servants to Sir O. St. John about the events which occurred previous to
the battle of Maiwand were interesting.
In the evening I was surprised to receive a visit from the stationma-ter of
Multan. He was one of the party of
Nawab
An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India.
Hussain Bakhsh. He had travelled
comfortably by the road he said and was astonished to find the Seistanis so well
disposed towards his party.
14th June .—Left Daulatabad for Sekoha, the ancient captial of Seistan,
now situated on the southern border which adjoins the unwatered tract lying
between Seistan proper and Koh-i-Malik Slab. The town is semi-deserted and
mud in decay.
On my way I visited the Nawab’s party at Husainabad. A more unsuitable
collection of people for such a journey I could not have imagined—old women,
children and men of poor physique all from the heat of Multan and all' probably
going to face a winter in Meshed. They seemed quite happy and well supplied
with everything by the Persians.
The reason which made them stay at Husainabad and not come into
Nusratabad is that there is no accommodation here, and a
caravanserai
A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
is much
wanted ; second, Nusratabad is about 8 miles off the direct Meshed road in winter
and more so in summer when there is water in the Naizar; and third, the road by
Nusratabad crosses numbers of canals unbridged and deep over which the camels
cannot carry a load without danger.
When the trade by this route develops, it would be inconvenient if the
traders avoided the capital and the Consul by 8 miles, and I am considering
whether I cannot induce the Amir to bridge the canals to Nusratabad so that the
caravaans may come in here at any rate during the winter. If I could accomplish
this and get a
caravanserai
A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
built somehow it would be a great convenience to the
trader.
iSthJune.— 'Leit Sikoha for Burj-i-Kohna. On my way I entered into
conversation with the villagers en route. I found that the new customs regu
lations which are to be enforced later were disturbing them a good deal. I am
not yet in a position to say what these new regulations are, but I assured them
that no taxes would be levied on them if they brought goods from India other than
the 5 per cent, ad valorem agreed to by treaty.
Of course they w T ere quite ignorant of usual customs dues and only argued
that formerly there were no taxes into Seistan and that now they would be
forgetting that Seistan formerly was not a place of egress.
If the Seistan does not get to India to fetch his indigo, I hope it will only be
a greater inducement to the Indian traders to carry their trade to Seistan.
iCth June .—Left Burj-i-Kohna for Deh Khoja Ahmad. Khoja Ahmad is
situated on the broad canal which leads the water of the Helmund from Kohak
bund to Seistan. The canal is about 50 yards wide at that place.
The day was very hot in camp.
In the evening I rode six miles to see the Bund-i-Seistan. The account
given of this bund in General Goldshmid’s narrative of Eastern Persia is very
different to what it was when 1 saw it. They describe it in February as a bund
which extended across the Helmund completely turns the entire water into the
artificial channel of the canal.
In June when I visited it the bund appeared to me to have very little effect
at all on the course of the Helmund. I saw a mass of entwined tamarisk branches
apparently on the level of the low banks and extending only as far as the water
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