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‘Seistan Persia & Seistan’ [15r] (34/617)
The record is made up of 2 volumes (301 folios). It was created in 22 Jun 1896-3 Mar 1900. 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.
an !i m ju Ss W1 ! 1 ° f course s00n be made ^st a carriage road and then a railway a
and then, of course, the English artillery which will then decorate Koh-i-Madk
Tehran 111 ^ great Weight t0 ^ utterailce8 of the English Minister in
Tlie opening of this road has inflicted a great and almost irreparable
blow on Russian trade with Persia. Seistan and Kohistan, from the point of
view of trade, have up to now turned to India from where they received
ioreign goods by the Persian port of Bandar Abbas, Only the increase in
power of the Bam mountain robbers has forced the native merchants to turn
towards the north, and through Khorassan to enter into trade relations with
Russia.
4 That bond has not yet succeeded in becoming secure, and doubtless this
new and entirely safe road, purposely made so as to be free from impositions
(the Persian trade caravans, by arrangement of the English, are freed on the
whole load from every local impost and taxation), will break this bond a^ain
and for a long time. The loss of Kohistan and Seistan is not for us so
important as the possibility of a considerable entry of English goods into
Khorassan.
‘ By and uith v hat means are we to fight the English competition there?
About this we must think much.”
This gives a rosy picture of the Nushki-Seistan route, which, I am afraid,
is far removed from the actual facts.
Hie Russian
writer
The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping.
talks of the guards protecting the caravans from
Baluch robbers, but Lieutenant Webb-Ware gives a very different account.
In his diary for the 1st May 1897, Lieutenant Webb-Ware says Raids
through the most westerly portion of my district are a matter of daily occur
rence. Only a few days prior to my arrival at Assad Chah, a party of raiding
Eamani carried off two camels and one man; the man escaped. I have just
received information that a
kafila
A train of travellers; a caravan; or any large party of travellers.
was attacked near Tuzghi by another party,
and two men killed, while a party of the same tribe actually had the audacity
to march to attack us; that they saw good reason not to carry out their
amiable project was a source of much regret to all.
<( These same Damani are Persian subjects and live in, and raid from,
Persian territory. I would respectfully suggest, under these circumstances,
that the Persian Government be taken to task for permitting the existence of
this intolerable state of affairs.
“ The Damani in all do not number a thousand men, so the plea of
inability to coerce them cannot well be advanced.”
Again, in his diary for the 16th May 1897, Lieutenant Webb-Ware fur
ther reports that the Pishin horse trader, who was given a letter to me by
Mr. Barnes, the Agent to the Governor-General for Baluchistan, as mentioned
in paragraph 1 of my diary for the week ending 25th June 1897, and who was
turned back by the Persians at the frontier after his long journey of 644
miles across the desert, suffered severely on his return journey.
Lieutenant Webb-Ware says:—“On his way back from Koh-i-Malik
Siah, near Tuzghi, he was attacked by a party of 15 Sirhadi raiders. Erom his
account it would appear that he made a most plucky resistance, and it was
only after being severely wounded himself through the neck, and after one of
his camels had been killed outright, that seeing further resistance futile, he
and his small party of six abandoned their property and fled. This incident
will give you a very fair idea of the assurance of these trans-frontier raiders ;
it must be remembered that Surgeon-Major Oreagh had passed Tuzghi with
his large escort but four or five days previously. I fear that we will find it
an exceedingly difficult matter to put down raids in a country which lends
itself so naturally to them. Nothing could possibly be more fatal to the
reputation of the lately opened route and nothing will exercise a more adverse
influence in discouraging others from giving the road a trial than the experi
ence which this the pioneer party of Pishin merchants met with.”
Lieutenant Webb-Ware does not mention where these Damanis came
from, but presumably it is from Sarhad, and the first thing, I take it, to bring
home a sense of their responsibility to the Persian Government will be a formal
About this item
- Content
The volumes contain papers relating to Persia [Iran], including Seistan, and the tract of land south of the Baluch-Afghan boundary between Nushki and Persia, which had become British territory following the demarcation of the Afghan-Baluch border.
The papers largely consist of printed copies of correspondence between the Governor General of India in Council (Government of India Foreign Department) and the Secretary of State for India (Lord George Francis Hamilton), and enclosed correspondence and papers.
Letters from the Governor General of India in Council to the Secretary of State for India include:
- Number 170, 16 September 1896, relating to the opening up of a trade route between Nushki and the Persian frontier, crossing the tract of British territory south of the Baluch-Afghan boundary, and the protection of the newly-demarcated frontier, with enclosed memorandum by Captain Arthur Henry McMahon, British Commissioner, Baluch-Afghan Boundary Commission, containing his proposals for the management and administration of the tract and for the protection of the trade route
- Number 58, 31 March 1898, concerning the trade route between Baluchistan and Persia, including the suggestion that Consular Agents should be appointed at central points along it between Seistan and Meshed, with enclosures including a report by Lieutenant Frank Webb-Ware, Political Assistant at Chagai, on his visit to Seistan at the beginning of 1896, and the measures introduced for the development of trade between Baluchistan and Persia (which includes a blueprint map, Mss Eur F111/350, f 33)
- Number 163, 15 September 1898, forwarding copies of papers regarding the situation in Makran and Panjgur, following recent ‘disturbances’ in Makran.
The file also includes:
- Copies of Government of India Foreign Department papers numbered 40-58 relating to the Kerman Consulate and British interests in Southern Persia, including correspondence between the Government of India Foreign Department and the Secretary of State for India
- A letter from the Secretary of State for India to the Governor General of India in Council, with enclosed despatch from Sir (Henry) Mortimer Durand, HM Minister at Tehran, to the Foreign Office, dated 12 February 1899, in which he gives his opinion on suggestions for the appointment of additional consular officers in Persia (this includes a map titled ‘Skeleton Map of Telegraph Lines in Persia.’ Mss Eur F111/350, f 187)
- A letter from Durand to the Secretary to the Foreign Department of the Government of India, 24 February 1899, enclosing a copy of his memorandum (with appendices) drawn up in 1895 on the situation in Persia, and the steps he proposed should be taken to improve the British position there
- Copies of a draft despatch from the Governor General of India in Council, 2 September 1899, regarding relations between Great Britain and Persia, including improving the British Political and Consular service in Persia, and the extent of the share of responsibility for Persia that should be devolved upon the Government of India, followed by printed comments upon the draft
- Copies of a minute by George Nathaniel Curzon, Viceroy of India, on Seistan, dated 4 September 1899, including the question of a railway connection between India and Seistan
- Handwritten pencil notes by Curzon relating to Persia and the ‘Seistan Question’.
In addition to the two maps noted above, the file also includes the following maps: map of the area south of the border between Afghanistan and Baluchistan (Mss Eur F111/350, f 300); map of the area west of the border between Persia and Afghanistan (Mss Eur F111/350, f 301); and ‘Route Plan of Robat Nala’ (Mss Eur F111/350, f 302).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes (301 folios)
- Arrangement
Most of volume A is arranged in reverse chronological order from the front to the rear of the volume (from folios 6 to 76); volume B is arranged is rough chronological order from the front to the rear of the volume.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this file consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the inside front cover of volume one (ff 1-150) and terminates at the inside back cover of volume two (ff 151-304); 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.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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‘Seistan Persia & Seistan’ [15r] (34/617), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/350, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100072740552.0x000023> [accessed 18 April 2024]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/350
- Title
- ‘Seistan Persia & Seistan’
- Pages
- front , back , spine, edge , head , tail, front-i, 2r:32v, 34r:62v, 64r:84r, 86r, 89r:93v, 96r:96v, 99v:100v, 101v:128v, 129v:149v, back-i, front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, 152r:186v, 188r:189r, 190r:299v, 303r:304v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence