Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎337ar] (678/879)

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CONNOISSEVR
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37, KING STREET,
COVENT GARDEN, w.(
5
THE SHAH’S CAPITAL
HANDY-MEN OF THE EAST.
WRITTEN BY J. MORRIS,
AUTHOR OF " JAPAN AND Irs TRADE."
PROGRESS IN TEHERAN.
RUSSIA’S GIANT STRIDES.
the
After a stay of more than two months —
Asama and Takasago have bidden us farewell, and
the brilliant sunrise ensign floats no longer at Spit:
head. But the impression created by the visit of
the Japanese warships and the demeanour of their
crews at Plymouth, Sheerness, and Portsmouth is
certain to be lasting, and we have had proof in
abundance of the cordiality and completeness with
which, should the occasion ever arise, the allied
fleets will be able to co-operate.
The Japanese, as we have often heard, are
" born sailors.” They sailed their ships to the
Straits of Malacca and India as long ago as the
days of the Plantagenets, and but for the prohibi-
tive enactments of the Shogun Iyeyasu, who
very early in the Seventeenth Century confined the
maritime enterprise of the Island Empire to its own
waters, we should have been better acquainted
with our allies perhaps than we are to-day. In
no way was the yoke of the Tokugawa usurper felt
to be more galling by the clansmen of Southern
Japan than in this matter of restricted naviga-
tion, and one of the first indications of the
approaching upheaval was to have been discerned
in Satsuma's resolve to create a Navy of its own,
and which bore fruit several years prior to the
outbreak of that decisive " War of the Restora-
tion " on which North and South finally embarked
in 1867.
Satsuma's little fleet formed the nucleus of that
formidable Navy in which Japan now takes such
justifiable pride, and Satsuma men are throughout
conspicuous among its personnel at the present
hour. It would be strange, indeed, if this were
not the case, seeing that from ancient times
Satsuma,
BRITISH TRADE AND PRESTIGE,
clan, had much to do with
those over-sea expeditions to Korea and China
that made Japanese naval power something to be
reckoned with even in the Middle Ages. It was in
one of the earlier combats with the Koreans that
the Prince of Satsuma’s followers were fortunate
enough to achieve so signal a victory as to admit
of the transfer of a considerable number of their
foes to the vicinity of Kagoshima, where their skill
was availed of in connection with the manufacture
of porcelain.
The descendants of these captives dwell in the
village of Ijuin, a name which has become familiar
to English ears of late as being that of the visiting
Japanese admiral. Ijuin is situated some seven
miles to the westward of the Satsuma capital, and its
denizens are now scarcely to be distinguished from
their neighbours. But the exploit which led to
the naturalisation of these Korean potters among
the dwellers in the extreme south of Kiushiu was
only one of many recorded in the history of the
Satsuma clan, and need serve no other purpose
now than to prove that the adventurous disposi-
tion with which the men of this part of the Japanese
Empire are credited is no mere modern endow,
ment, but a direct inheritance from their ancestors
who fought in the train of Hideyoshi.
GREATER Efficiency.
WRITTEN BY BL J. WHIGHAM,
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.
Whatever may be one’s opinion of the pleasures
of road travel in Persia, it will always be found
enjoyable after nearly a month of caravaning to
come on an oasis like Kum, where, instead of a
battered caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). or a filthy mud .hovel, the
traveller finds almost luxurious lodging at the
rest-house of the Road Company, which, in point
of size and comfort, might almost vie with an
inferior up-country hotel in India. If he comes
from the West he sees also for the first time the
various conveniences of a post-house on a main route
in Persia. He can at a few minutes’ notice order a
relay of horses to take him on to Teheran, or,
better still, he can engage a phaoton, and so cover
the last ninety miles of his journey in the incredibly
short space of twenty hours with comparative euse
and little fatigue. The phaeton is a species of
tarantass with low wheels and no facilities for carry;
ing baggage : in fact, a vehicle singularly ill-adapted
to the requirements of Persian travel. It is
also rather costly, the fare from Kum to Teheran,
including the minimum tip for the driver on
each stage, amounting to just £8. Yet
to drive ninety odd miles in less than twenty-four
hours is in Persia so much like putting on seven;
leagued boots in any other country that one would
gladly pay treble the price to be relieved from the
monotony of caravan pace.
THE WHITE CONE OF DEMAVEND.
It was pleasant to wake up as we changed horses
at Aliabad just before sunrise, and to see for the
first time the beautiful white cone of Demavend,
the Fujiyama of Persia, which is visible
by day to the traveller long before he reaches
Kum on his way from the Gulf, and
serves as a mark to sailors on the Caspian
from a little east of Enzeli to Bunder-idez
When I saw it first in the early morning—
stormclouds having obscured it from viewthe night
before—it was looking its best at a distance of
seventy miles or so, which was sufficient to separate
the great sugar cone from the rough mass of the
Elburz range, and yet not too great to rob the
' mountain of its imposing grandeur. The sattron
rays of the morning lighted on 7.000ft. of pure snow,
while the mountain billows below were still m
shadow and nothing could be distinguished on
the intervening desert except the glimmer of the
■ great salt lake to the right of the road.
,9 - — &
Knowing what we do of the origin and excellent
discipline of Japan’s Navy it is not a little in-
teresting to recall the circumstance that as recently
as 1890 it was the object, as a Japanese 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. ,
Inouye Jukichi, assures us, of acrimonious attacks
from certain sections of the Japanese Press and
their partisans in the Diet. It was urged that the
warships were defective, and that the naval officers
in command of them, or occupying important posts,
had been selected and promoted mainly on the
strength of their clan and family connections, and
not because of their actual merit or capacity.
The Parliament of Tokio at first refused to
sanction the programme for the enlargement of
the Japanese Navy which Admiral Kabayama,
then Minister of Marine, brought forward. Therewas
a somewhat widespread conviction that a guarantee
of greater efficiency was needful before the Diet
would be warranted in voting supplies in consider-
able sums for the construction of those battleships
and cruisers which have since been added to the
fleet, and of which the Asama and Takasago are
among the most conspicuous.
The Mikasa, which not long since quitted our
shores, and tho ShikiMma, Asahi, and Hats^^
were the four magnificent battleships that
were provided for in the programme alluded
to, together with half a dozen armoured
cruisers, several protected cruisers, and a
large number of destroyers and torpedo-
bouts. Viscount Kabayama's eloquent appeal in
December, 1890, was in vain, and it really needed
the battle of the Yalu, four years later, to demon-
strate to the people of Japan the real value of their
own squadrons. Once the members of the Diet
became convinced, however, that the fleet was a
substantial power in the hands of the nation, and
that stupendous results might with confidence be
anticipated from its speedy development., money
was voted without a murmur, and equal liberality
As the fresh horses tore down the slopes of the
ridtes towards Teheran-encouraged by both the
brisk air of the desert and the promise of backshish
to the driver—we came on a great cavalcade of
tossemen stretched for miles along the road, and
followed at length by two closed victorias and a
few phaetons. The now Governor of Shiraz was
his way from the capital to his post. After
crossing the fine stone bridge which is one of the
Achievements of the English Road, Company wo
mounted the last ridge which separated us from the
Plain of Teheran, and saw at length the green
mass, larger than the other oases in the desert,
which indicates the capital. Situated at the foot
of the great Elburz rampart, which at the time.or
my visit was still covered for a thousand feet with
snow, in a plain thirty miles wide at least, on which
the irrigated fields stood out at this season like
green squares on a chessboard, with Demavend
standing sentinel among the clouds to the north-
east, Teheran might be made a fitting capital for
a great Empire. As it is, being possessed, or
not a single building of note, and surrounded
by insignificant walls of mud brick, en-
livened at the gateways with the., most
1 deplorable tile-work, the city of the Ring of
Kings has nothing beyond its natural surroundings
' to recommend it to the view of the approachins
traveller.
APPROACHING THE CAPITAL:
is pretty sure to be shown when the Government
again demands, as it will at no distant date.
egain domangp, a3 1. w1 av no at
I authority to expend additional millions
largement of its Navy.
on the on-
VALOUR AND INTREPIDITY.
When, in 1890, some of the Japanese accused
their naval officers of incapacity they never doubted
their valour or intrepidity. It was enough for most
people who knew anything of the antecedents of
Satsuma to be assured that the ex-retainers of that
clan were all-powerful in the fleet. Bravery,
beyond a doubt, it was said, would be manifest,
but there was likewise a feeling that the tendency
towards a reckless display of valour, which seems
to be a part of the Southern men's nature, would
From the summit of the last ridge the one feature
added by human effort to the landscape which
strikes the eye is the gleaming dome of the mosque
of Shah Abdul Azim, which flashes like a helio
graph from the heart of a large grove a few miles to
the south of the city. One notices, also, as one
draws nearer to the capital a largo building
on the road with an iron roof painted red,
which turns out to be the sugar factory An East India Company trading post.
erected by Belgian capital, but, like every other
enterprise of the sort in Persia, abandoned and
useless. The little railway which runs parallel
with the road from Shah Abdul Azim to the south
Unto of Teheran—a distance of about six miles—is
an exception to the rule ; it is positively in work
ing order, and the receipts exceed the expenses.
Inside the city there is a tram line with cars
zGich.r tesiqskn4.1ZzAP2MT":o?
bqdarzcEotha cre""eNgih2 "oeotlovnb cor"ensoYD
signboard “Eton, “in Teheran which are not
1 foreign d ezigunkin, and found comfortable quarters
rsin“phcturesque inn- courtyard full of troosand
flowers.
PROGRESS or AFFAIRS.
is still out Of the track of the regular
. ... ..: . 4. 1 gr g1nt1 11, 18
Teheran is still out of IM traca X EP):
not compensate for what was declared to be a globe-trotter, and will continue to, hes, "nh spite
perilous lack of scientific knowledge and technical connected by rail with Europe an 20: c
21:1 4L... ...I------ C, .lalimate and the or.
y rail with LuroPe le
werpan climate and the brilliant sunshine of
of the bracing i "6, asserted that, apart from
Persia it may be safely (&xe““are few ‘countries
archologicolintomien’ ™ »« • great.. deal
in the worm to the traveller. Never-
more attractiva or commercial considerations
the less, P so many Europeans in recent years to
have drey capital that a description of the city at
the Shah 8, “R. would be altogether out of place,
this timof,"Broro plunging into the bowilderin"
I shall? Persian statistics, indulge in the respite
vortex of. Orientation in order to fix the point of
of a lithe’ which the progress of affairs must be
' view from present moment. Strange to say, to
judged the progress of affairs in Persia, that most
talk oft" P Cuntries, is for the moment no abuse
sedentary ° "Avelling through the country you
of termsn.Ento and how fresh and up-to-date
may be SrPrraeaph in Lord Curzon’s, standard
is every pars 1. at, and finished more
work .DOESDars ago ; or for the matter of that
, than ten Xano. Hi Baba of Isfahan” seems to
' the immortal half the Persians you meet, with the
live to-day Roundings and local colouring which
S ° lf-sam Morier on his way from Bushire to Teheran
greeted a century back. But at Teheran, the focus
close ona influence and intrigue, events are suc-
of foreigane another at such a rapid rate that even
ceedi Curzon's summing up of the political aud
Lordereunf situntion is fast becoming obsolete.
FOREIGN ELEMENT IN Teheran.
, denarturo of the Shah and the long
The.CPASNaRy, which practically puts a stop
Moharram., for a fortnight, had made Teheran
to business, dual when I arrived. The foreign
qui oter th were resting from their labours, and
Minister em were not in the capital. , Mr.
many of " United States representative, who is,
Griscom, the Minister in the service
perhaps, tion Office, was on a tour
' of T Aly, and Hamadan. The German Minister
to Isf Furope leaving the affairs of that nation in
i was inas P of another very young man, Baron
| the hand who being well on the right side of
Kublmaun,,’ "Iin to be the youngest charge
thirty, may cane in existence. I was fortunate
। d’affaires P res Mister just before he started on
to catch our,°W" ILFANaRC" Tho foreign merchants
a flying FP most part waiting for the Moharram
were for the mt P ting in the meantime
festivities tp.gOposune of the extraordinary efforts
on the probn oush Russian trade in Persia. Even
being made.to PuSer, had ceased to trouble,having
the concession-hunteranto Europe to sell their
migrated with t FRAMe”syndicates, leaving behind
concessionsand. of unsuccessful promoters of
them only a jet“a"p.ria For the searcher alter
foreign industry in axon as this is perhaps the
knowledge such us since it is just at the quietest
most advantageon ‘schemes have time to mature
the two navies when they found thomsenves moensessenein features of thezsituntion roecoms
jointly engaged in operation. for the relief of the obscure. Moreoy 28 to convene? 7
Pekin Legations. It is an attachment based on powers in Persia have teleur. "
mutual respect and admiration for the prowess.’ BRITISH INTERESES
skill. Happily all these gloomy apprehensions
were shown to be baseless by the battle of Hai.
yang in September, 1894. Scientific precision
and unity of movement were exemplified by the
squadrons which obeyed Admiral Ito’s signals, and
the Japanese learned for the first time that they
could rely as implicitly on their fleets as they
always had done on their armies.
The notion that the very fearlessness of the
Satsuma officers would be the cause of their un-
doing, and that their rashness might lead them to
undertake operations from which they would be
unable to extricate their ships without loss, proved
to be altogether without foundation, and a closer
acquaintance with the characteristics of our allies
has merely served to indicate more clearly the
strength and security of their naval organisation
and the thoroughness of their knowledge and dis.
cipline.
THE BROTHERS SAIGO.
Satsuma owed much to the brothers Saigo ; the
elder, Marshal Saigo Takamori, was Minister of
War in the early seventies, and the younger.
Admiral Marquis Saigo, who died last month at the
age of sixty, had been for thirty-three years past '
prominent in the government of his country, and ,
during the greater part of that time was a Cabinet ,
Minister. It was to the enterprise of the Saigos
and their colleagues that Satsuma owed the forma,
tion in the first place of that flotilla of gunbonts,
four in all, which gave to the clan’s aspirations
force and directness at the period of the Restora.
Count Mntsukata, who not long since was in
London, had a share in these efforts, and, like
other Satsuma leaders, obtained his first lessons in
naval matters from the Dutchmen of Nagasaki, who
at that period were the only foreigners allowed to
reside in the country. One of the first war vessels
owned in Japan was originally a Dutch corvette.
But Great Britain is now the chief and almost the
sole source of supply outside Japan’s own dock,
yards, and, as it will be a long time before the
steel works of Yuwata village, near Shimonoseki,
provide armour-plates of the requisite dimensions
and quality for the construction of battleships, we
may hope to build Japanese ironclads and
armoured cruisers well into the present century.
MUTUAL Respect.
It has been to many a marvel that the people of
Japan have so rapidly assimilated Western ideas in
respect of navigation and naval armament. But
when we turn to the history of the Southern clans
there is less cause for wonder, since it is evident
that our allies were as conversant many centuries
ago with the science of navigation as we know
them to have been with the arts of war.
And the visit of the Asama and Takasago to our
shores has unquestionably gone far to cement that
attachment which sprang "P between the mon of
mutual respect and admiration for the prowess |
which the bluejackets of both Services exhibit in
the field, and the efficiency common to the ‘handy,
men " of East and West.
BREAKDOWN OF THE “GERMANIC."
The White Star steamerGermanic arrived at Queenstown
yesterday from New York and reported having broken
down on Sunday night, when the air-pump gave out. ‘The
crew were quickly set to work and repaired the damage,
and after a delay of four hours and a half the Germanic
resumed her voyaze.
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Outside of he information out of a Legation—
oxpect.to four men of commanding position in the
there are, ae mr.Noran to-day. F irst, in
foreign element, d inPersia. extending over
virtue A and his wonderful knowledge of
thirty-Gvey TR its capabilities, stands General
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which of the Shah from the time that he
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