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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.
Though 1 have been building huts to shelter the party, which easily might
have roused suspicions or excited the opposition of the ill-disposed, 1 have never
heard it expressed that our action is anything but popular.
That one of the buildings is a small mosque for the use of the Muhammadans
in the camp has quite astounded the people and seems to be a comfirmation
to them that we deal fairly.
I hope I am not drawing too highly coloured a picture of our popularity
here, but it is so openly expressed on the part of the people and we are so
well looked after and provided for that I don’t think I am mistaken.
Mr. Miller seems to have succumbed to the heat and to have taken up a
position of, 1 hope, annihilation. He has not been popular lately as he himself
has now taken to bathing in a state of nature with his cossaks. I often meet
him. He is very pleasant and broadminded. He carries no political bias into
social life.
The Eastern Persian Afghan border.
A rumour reaches me that the Afghans have cultivated on the Persian side of
the Goldshmid border, on this side of the old bed of the Helmund river (please
see map attached to Diary No. 6). They are reported to be making a canal from
a village called Bahlol (not marked in the map referred to but close to Deh Dost
Muhammad and on the old bed of the Helmund river on the Afghan side) towards
Takht-i-Shah and to have been ordered by the Aimr to continue their work against
all opposition. As the Nahir*i-Sarhang, which I saw under construction was also
directed towards Takht*i-Shah from the Persian side, there is likely to be some
friction between the Persian and Afghans if both coutinue their operations.
The Sarhang Muhammad Raza Khan has himself gone to Mian Kangi
district.
When travelling in that part I promised several people that Abbas Ali, Hos
pital Assistant, should visit the country and attend to sick cases which were
brought to me. I have thought this a good opportunity to send him there, and
he left here on the 21st June for a tour of ten days. He will report fully w’hat is
going on.
Increased demand by the Persian Government on Seistan revenues.
In private and confidential conversation with Mustophi Khalik Khan I
explained forcibly to him that whatever might be the claims of the Rukn-ud-Daulah
against the Hashmat-ul-Mulk for revenue, it was to the interest of Persia and the
Rukn-ud-Daulah himself that no change of Governor should take place in Seistan.
I said that any change of Governor would create disturbance here and seeing that
Seistan had now come under the eye of rival powers, it was wiser to have things
as they were under hereditary rulers, than to start a succession of rulers here at
each of whose appointment both Russia and England would have something to
say, while the ukn-ud-Daulah himself would probably not find a newly appointed
Governor any more amenable to paying enhanced revenue than the present man
who would be sure to do all he could to meet the wishes of the Rukn-ud-Daulah
to protect his hereditary rights.
The Mustophi was agreeable to this reasoning and said that he was an old
friend of the Hashmat-ul-Mulk and he would do his best to come to some arrange
ment. I impressed on him that the English were resolved on developing the
Seistan trade route and advised him not to act contrary to their interests or to
advise the Rukn-ud-Daulah to do so.
The Mustophi asked me whether I could buy grain from him, as he said the
Amir could only pay him in kind and the Rukn-ud-Daulah wanted cash. He offered
to sell me 15,000 Indian maunds of grain, at 1 maund 14 seers (Indian weight)
a rupee for barley and 27 Indian seers a rupee for wheat I said while I was
quite willing to oblige him were I could, such an enormous quantity of grain
would be as useless to me as it was to him, and that even if we wanted to fill up
our godowns on the Nushki route, it would only be a few hundred maunds we
5
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