Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎29r] (57/690)

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^^bcut 00 miles above the bar outside the Shat-el-Arab, 40 miles
above the entrance to that estuary at Fao, and 20 miles below the
inwl^QW f A B Tr h ’ the pre8ent main exit ° f the Karun rivfer flows
nto the Shat-el-Arab from the north-east by an artificial channel, whose
etymology tostilies to its origin, known as tho Haffar Canal© When
this canal was cut no one knows, and I shall not attempt to conjecture ®
fhe reason for its construction was presumably to open a communication
etween the Karun, which then entered the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. by an inde
pendent mouth, and the Sbat-el-Arab, and thus to promote trade between
Arabistan and the then existing predecessors of the Turkish ports of
Busrah and Baghdad. Where it flows into the Shat-el-Arab, the Haflar
^disabout a quarter of a mile in width, with a depth of from 20 to
The town of Mohammerah is situ-
ated upon-Ae right or north bank aUJu-th.lliir^,,,,.,!, at a distance
ol a little more than a mile from the pointy of confluence; although
the new buildings recently erected by the Persian Government in
consequence of the opening of tho river to foreign trade, and con
sisting of a governor’s house and a warehouse, with a primitive quay
made of palm trunks in front, have been placed on the shore in the
angle between the two streams. The comfort of the future governor
as not been forgotten, for a bathhouse, heated by a furnace ig
appended to his mansion. In the interval before trade begins the
new quay which is about fifty yards long, was being turned to prac
tical use, having recently been ploughed and sown. On the opposite
or southern side of the Ilaffar Canal are the ruins of an old Persian
fort and castle, where the sheikh used to reside fifty years ago, and
which, in co operation with larger works on the northern bank
attempted to dispute the entrance of the river with the British in
18Of, but was very speedily silenced and knocked to pieces by our /
guns,
Here the British India gteamer stopped her engines to put me ^
down. At Fao the Turkish custom-house officer had come on board vt
and it was thought likely that he might raise an objection to the
vessel stopping at Mohammerah, to allow of my leaving her, although ^
he could have no legal claim whatever to do so, Mohammerah being *
a I ersian port, and the Turks having no right of control either over ^
the boats of the British India Company or over the opposite side of 1
tlm Shat-el-Arab. This forecast of the probable tactics of Turkish ^
officialdom was not entirely mistaken, because, although the indivi- <
dual in question made no sign when I disembarked, he subsequently
lodged a formal complaint upon arriving at Busrah, and swore that
the captain ha^put me down in the face of his vehement protest. ^
bpon this thelOustom-house at Busrah fined the vessel £ 12 , an act
of impertmenFTnalice to which, I am glad to say, that the agents of 7
the company absolutely declined to submit, and which was still the
subject of heated controversy when I left the river a month later.
I mention it only as an ad ditional instance of the amenities of Otto- \
man officials in a region too remote' from head-quartersTo admit
either of prompt interventioiipr becoming chastisement. ^
Disembarking in a bellanl^or native boat—a long, narrow craft, i|
shaped rather like a racing punt, and either sailed with a big lateen 's
on a single mast, or paddled, or poled—I was propelled in the last- u ^
named fashion round the corner of the Ilaffar Canal up to the town
o f Mohammerah. 3 ^
1 ^ Against the opposite bank was moored the rusty and decaying '5
Y 7 llulk of an old steamer > owned many years ago by Haji Jabir Khan,
the late Sheikh of the neighbouring Arabs, who had procured from £
the Government at Teheran a monopoly of the navigation of the . t
Lower Karun as far as Ahwaz. The story ran that when laden
with a cargo of petroleum the vessel had been destroyed by fire. (
Mohammerah, as I have said, is situated rather more than a mile up (-
the Ilaffai Canal, the total length of which, from the Shat-el-Arab
to the Karun proper, is about three miles, with an average breadth ^
of a quarter of a mile, and depth of from twenty to thirty feet. 1 * It
is probable that in the passage of time it has been considerably
enlarged, as the banks are liable to be chafed away in flood time,
while the sea-tide flowing up the Bahmeshir, or original and natural
mouth of the Karun river, piles up the waters of the latter and forces
them into the Ilaffar channel.