‘Persia – especially Seistan’ [‎84r] (166/949)

3
ship, which only drew 17 feet, was anchored more than two miles from the
shore, and yet had only a foot or two of water under the keel at low tide.
The Captain showed me the chart of the coast, dated 1874 , and pointed out
that, in the meantime, the hay had silted up five feet, or practically a fathom.
The accompanying chart, for which I have to thank the British India Company,
as there are no chart sellers in Bombay or Karachi, shows very clearly how
exposed the five-fathom line (now only the four-fathom) is to the south and
south-west, and how expensive it will be to convert the place into a secure
anchorage unless the facilities of the port are confined to small coasting steamers.
Even they, under present conditions, will he compelled to put to sea, and be
unable to land either passengers or cargo, whenever an easterly gale springs
up. If further information is required, reference might be made to the British
India Company, whose Captains on that run will know after the monsoon what
effect the swell has on ships in the bay.
Erom the preceding description it is obvious that Pasni in its present state
is an impossible terminus for any railway at all, but more particularly for a
strategic railway where the one desideratum is facility of uninterrupted working
under all conditions of weather. It is true, as will be seen from the estimates,
that the cost of the bare alignment from Kondi to Pasni is considerably less than
that between Kondi and Karachi, but no account has been taken of the
enormous outlay, which, it will have been realised, will be required to convert
what is now little better than an open shallow roadstead into an important
military and railway base. A breakwater, port defences, jetties and their
equipment, railway carriage and locomotive shops, quarters, and a number of
other items which'l am quite unable to estimate for.
The railway terminal works would certainly absorb twenty to thirty lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees .
Note. It is difficult to ascertain, even approxi- (Tllti block aCCOUnt of the Nortll-AI estcrn
Railway at Karachi cannot be less than
i crore Equivalent to ten million, or one hundred lakhs. Used especially in connection with money (rupees). .) A breakwater two miles long
would cost more than a crore Equivalent to ten million, or one hundred lakhs. Used especially in connection with money (rupees). , while jetties,
cranes, sidings, barges, &c., would run to
several lakhs One lakh is equal to one hundred thousand rupees "if carried out on an adequate
scale. There is, therefore, little room for
doubt that the saving in the cost of the
Pasni alignment would be swallowed up
in the works at the port. In a project
were ,..o»r„.e. fov a strategic railway, military consider
ations should, however, be paramount, and too much stress should not he laid
on small differences in economy between rival schemes. I should, theietoie,
state what appear to be decisive objections to Pasni as a terminus :
(a) In time of war it will be an additional port to protect.
th) It is separated from our Indian railway system by 200 miles of
sea, so all troops and supplies will be subjected to the risk and
delay of having to be conveyed by transports.
A railway from Karachi to Kondi is free from these drawbacks, and affords
speed and security to the work of mobilisation Karachi is, moreover, the
natural terminus of a future Indo-European line (should that e\ei be
built) whether it go by Makran or Herat. Eurther, the alignment to
Karachi while sacrificing no point of importance, is less exposed to attack
than that to Pasni; for the latter, in turning to the west up the Kech valley,
is vulnerable from the north owing to the re-entrant angle of the Persian
frontier, whereas the former is safer and more compact, as it is retired to the
east from the point where the Kech Kolwa valley is entered; while the
populous part of Kech, from Turbat westwards, can be protected by a feeder
line, with P some real commercial prospects, > running up the valley a S far
as Tump, on the same principle as the Kondi-Seistan branch, loi it seem
that the essential features of a well designed frontier system are that it
should radiate towards the frontier from a secure base, run parallel to the
frontier only so far as it can with safety, and then return to its original
starting point, or to some similar base connected with the first by an inteuoi
line of^railway. Its most exposed portions on the frontier should be protected
mately, what similar harbours in India have cost. At
Madras, where at any rate there is the advantage of
deep water inshore, the expenditure appears to he
considerably over a crore Equivalent to ten million, or one hundred lakhs. Used especially in connection with money (rupees). . I am endeavouring to get
the figures of the Karachi Harbour block account,
but it° is doubtful if they can be furnished with
any degree of accuracy owing to the different agencies
that have been at work at various times. If I can
get them in sufficient detail hereafter, they can be
printed in the appendix. They will give, ceteris
paribus, some idea of the probable outlay required
at Pasni. A breakwater on the east coast of India
has recently been estimated at Rs. 1,000 pei foot;
in a locality where the conditions as regards materials
were favourable