'Report on the Preliminary Survey of The Route for The Central Persia Telegraph Line from Quetta to Bam and Pahra' [‎47r] (98/162)

11
temperature at Shurgez in the early morning on the 3rd February last was 22 0
F., and in the afternoon of the same day the thermometer registered 64° F.,in the
shade. When I was camped on this same desert, a little further to the south,
near Regan, on the 14th February, the minimum temperature was 26° F., and
the maximum 78° F. Considering these temperatures, it is not, I think, surprising
that storms with great violence frequently occur.
Comparing the two routes which run west from Koh-i-Malik Seah for the
construction of a telegraph line, 1 am inclined to favour the one via
Nasratabad in preference to the one via Hyderabad. There is certainly
not much to choose between them. Both run through Shurgez where the
worst feature of the desert, sand, is met with. The former however joins in
with the Siestan-Bunder Abbas trade route, about 55 miles west of Koh-i-Malik
Seah, and continues on with it to Regan, via Nasratabad and Shurgez. As far
as I could gather, very little trade passes along this way, but still it has the
pretensions of a trade route, and this is, perhaps, a superiority over the Hydera
bad route. Moreover, the latter crosses the Pir Soran range of mountains in the
bed of the Rood Mahee, or river Mahee. Rood is the Persian name for river.
This river is usually dry, but guides informed me that a flood of water occasion
ally rushes down it. Its width varies from 200 to 300 yards, and it is flanked
in many places by high precipitous hills on either side. The Rood Mahee ap
pears to be the principal pass through the Pir Soran mountains, so that the con
struction of a telegraph line across this range would be difficult.
Any course directly west of Koh-i-Malik Seah must pass through bad country
as far as Fahreh. This place is a small unimportant village, 37 miles east
from Bam, and is situated on the south-west border of the great Dasht-i-Lut, or
Central Persian desert. The Siestan-Bunder Abbas trade route passes through
Fahreh, and continues on via Regan. The best course for a telegraph line
along this way would, I think, leave the trade route at Fahreh, and branch off to
Bam direct. Fahreh to Bam via Regan is about 78 miles. Regan, although
marked prominently on maps, is an insignificant village of perhaps 400 people,
so that there is no object for a line to take an oblique course in order to pass
through it. The country anywhere between Fahreh and Bam is very good.
Climate.
19. As regards the climate of the country between Nushki and Bam, I can
not g've many particulars beyond stating that the summers are excessively
hot, and the winters cold. During my recent tour, the minimum temperature
every day up to the end of February was, as a rule, somewhere near freezing
point, sometimes 8 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit below it. The most severe cold
I experienced was at a place called Abahmed, 66J miles west of Ladis, and
about 3,600 feet above sea level. Here the thermometer on the morning of the
21 st February last registered 14 0 F. During the summer the heat on the
desert must be terrific. As I quoted in paragraph 12 of my former report,
Captain R. E. Roome recorded the temperature in the shade at Paniham, a little
west of Dalbandin, as 127 0 F. on the 2nd May 1897 in a double-fly hill tent. It
would be interesting to see a record of temperatures registered during the sum
mer at a few places along the Nushki trade route. I fancy some of the figures
would be amazingly big, especially at places, like Yadgar, situated in the midst
of sand hills.
If it be decided to construct a telegraph line from Quetta to the Persian
Frontier, it will be very important to arrange that work be started not later than
the middle of October, so as to permit of the working parties completing the
construction before the following May. If work be continued into the summer
months, the health, if not lives, of the men engaged on it will be seriously en
dangered.
The Quetta-Nushki-Siestan trade route.
20. It may, perhaps, be permissible for me to make some remarks in this
report on the Quetta-Nushki-Siestan trade route, for the welfare of this route
directly concerns the interest of any telegraph line that may be constructed
along it.