Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎304v] (609/879)

: MILITARY GAZETTE, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1903. 3
laying down of office and return to England
next Spring.
To District Boards the new plague policy in
the Punjab will be peculiarly welcome : to
some of them it will inaugurate almost a new
era of financial vitality and hopefulness. In the
past, District Boards have been expected to
bear heavy burdens of plague expendi
ture irrespective of the resources of their
exchequers and regardless of the calls upon
their coffers fro n other directions. It is
true that the Punjab Government have re
couped to District Boards the ultimate deficits
due to plague expenditure, which indeed was
a necessary step to save them f rom actual
bankruptcy, but help of that sort is too like
relieving the camel’s back of the weight of
the last straw. The Lieutenant-Governor
has frankly recognised that “an unsatisfactory
feature of the existing system is that in some
districts it has unduly restricted expenditure
on public works ; ” and, while affirming the
principle that District Boards are responsible
for plague expenditure “ within reasonable
limits,” His Honour is of opinion that
" public works in infected districts are now
being so starved that the consequences can
not fail to be serious. ” Hence the new
order that " District Boards should be
required and permitted not only to maintain
their existing public works, but also to |
spend a reasonable amount on new and origi- :
nal works.” In future, accordingly, the Pro- :
vincial Government will relieve the District |
Boards of all plague expenditure, except in |
regard to purely local precautionary measures. s
At the time when annual budgets are pre- i
pared the financial position of the District j
Beards will be reviewed, the probable pro- 1
vincial and local plague expenditure in each 4
district will be estimated, and after provision :
has been made for reasonable expenditure |
under the heads of Medical, Education,
Public Works, Establishments, etc., then, and
only then, it will be determined whether
each District Board can bear the whole or
only a part of its estimated local plague
expenditure. It should be remarked that the
Aryan world as represented by Persia, hav e
at last been subdued by the long arm of
Russia. As a consequence, the rulers of the
border provinces of Persia, the khans or
satraps, who were immemorially semi-inde-
pendent, have been brought into elose sub
jection to the Crown, and have become mere
officials. Persia has no more attacks to fear
from neighbouring tribes, while the Shah
seems to have made up his mind that any
war with either England or Russia would
be mere madness. Therefore, and not
wholly from slackness, as we are too apt to
suppose, he has let his army dwindle till
its only effective element is the famous
Cossack Brigade. Strangely enough, in Per
sia as in China, the people seem to like
being devoured a la Russe, and the Shah
approves and appreciates the Cossacks who
are a badge of his subjection.
The 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. to whom we have re
ferred is M. Domnitsky, who in “ Letters
from Persia, ” recorded his adventures and
observations during 1898 and 1899. This book
has for some time enjeyed a high repute
in Russia and has lately been made acces
sible to a larger public in an abridgement
by M. Michel Delines, running through four
numbers of the Bibliotheque Universelle. M.
Domnitsky, while apparently a good observer,
hates the English and all their works with
an unreasoning hatred, but M. Delines, true
to the long traditions of the magazine for
which he writes, loves us, and at critical
places he interrupts the narrative to point out
the wrongheadedness of his author, or to
show gently how conditions which Domnit
sky reprobates in Persia are more than
paralleled in his own country. But we may
leave aside controversial matter, and confine
ourselves to M. Domnitsky’s first-hand and
valuable observations. He entered Persia at
Resht, crossed the mountains by difficult
mule tracks to Kazvin, and thence proceeded
by an excellent post road, Russian-built, to
Teheran. Many of his impressions were
by no means favourable. The Persians, with
all their great European appearance, are of
the filthiest in their habits. Everywhere “ the
specific odour of the East ” salutes the nes-
trils. Persian houses, often commodious,
with wide facades of glass, are of an in-
I credible discomfort, the rooms badly ar-
ranged, and the staircases commonly un-
. manageably steep. M. Domnitsky’s conclusion
is that, with all his pure Aryan type, his
good looks and his genial manner, the Per
sian is no more than a native, and a rather
weak sort at that. Just as much as the
Chinaman, he has been petrified by the
tyranny of religion, and by congealed tradi
tion upon all kinds of absurd subjects-
His only strongly marked aptitude is for
commerce, and even here he cannot take
a high flight : there are no millionaires in
Persia. The typical Persian is rather a
petty tradesman. No Persian, for that
matter, could become very rich without ex
posing himself to the Government squeeze.
There are villages in the mountains de
liberately so hidden away that the tax-collect
ors do not knew of their existence. Much
of the population of the North is drained
away to the Russian labour-markets. " The
Persian who has ventured beyond the Rus
sian frontier brings back a taste for civilisa
tion, and a love for Russia.” All Persians
of the north would become Russian subjects
if they could manage it, and if they were
not deterred by religious considerations. As
it is, Russian subjects seem to be at least
as numerous in Persia as French subjects
are in Siam, and they enjoy an almost
unfair advantage and immunity since the
Government dare not touch them. As a
Russian merchant at Resht boasted, “ Here
I have my Consul, at Teheran our Ambas
sador, and in the Caucasus bayonets by
hundreds of thousands.” Repeatedly at Tauris
when bread-riots or other disturbances were
in the air, half the population has sought
refuge with the Russian Consul, begging
him to naturalize them.
Teheran is a city of 50,000 houses, which
still look as if they were an afterthought
of an essentially nomadic people. Save for
a few European houses, everything is behind
high walls. “ Try to imagine two hundred
passages, each one like the other, and you
financial arrangements prescribed above for
District Boards will not apply to municipali
ties. All plague expenditure incurred in a
municipal town will ordinarily be held to be
local and not provincial, unless any part of
. it can be clearly shown to have been in
curred for the protection of the province as
a whole under the express direction of the
Government. Ordinarily a municipality will t
bear all local plague expenditure without
assistance from general revenues, and if
any temporary assistance is required in any
case it will take the form of loans. From
this the conclusion would seem to follow, as
part of the new policy, that if in municipal
towns the Government are no longer to pay
the piper, they will be content to forego the
privilege of calling the tune.
The Civil and Military Gazette.
LAHOR E, NOVEMBER 2 9, 1903.
I —= - - = :— ===-
TRAVELS IN NORTH PERSIA.
How little we know of the other side of
the shield in Persia, or of how the Empire of
the Lion and the Sun appears when viewed
from the North. The people of North Per
sia, too, including, unfortunately, the capital,
have a different Weltauscannung from their
. brethren of the Gulf. If is useless to deny
that in North Persia the work of Russia is
practically done. Io the people there the
“ o’ergrown Barbarian of the North ” appears
as the beneficent, overshadowing Fate of the
Future. Russia predominates there yet some
how does not inspire apprehension, even in
the Governmentand save only for a little ner
vousness on the point of religion, Persians
would almost seem, to long to be merged in
the Empire of the Tsar. Russia knows how
t® impose upon, and to attract, the peoples
of Asia, excepting India and Japan, and
according to a recent 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. her con
quests of the last forty years in Central Asia
have, instead of alarming the Shah, actually
eased him, and increased his apparent do
mestic prestige. The peoples of the waste,
the nomad Turanians, who waged such an
age-long and picturesque conflict with the
will have an idea of the looks of the great
city of Persia.” The only moderately clean
or commodious street is the one controlled
by the British Embassy. M. Domnitsky
cannot help insinuating that we have walled
ourselves about so stoutly in Teheran, for
fear of attack from a justly incensed popula
tion, though as a matter of history, the only
attack upon an Embassy in Teheran was
that of three-quarters of a century ago, upon
the Russian, in the course of which a fam
ous young Russian author, Priboiedoff, met
a cruel death. The rival missionaries in
Teheran struggle hotly for possession of the
children of Armenians and Chaldaeans, who
are the only communities among whom they
are allowed to practice proselytism M.
Domnitsky, who lets it be seen that he was
concerned in some concessions in regard to
which an English rival got the better of him,
had an interview with the Shah at a sum
mer palace a dozen miles out from Teheran.
His Majesty was seated in an arm-chair in
a courtyard, beside a foaming torrent arti
ficially brought down from the mountains.
That is something of the way in which all
Persians of easy means like to spend the
greater part of the year, though most of
them have to resort to tents on the hill sides.
The Shah was firm in refusing to let the Rus
sians establish their industry on the site
of two villages which used to be a favourite
hunting ground of his for bear, when he
was Heir Apparent. He rose from his chair,
and eagerly entertained his visitors, for
some minutes, with his hunting exploits,
speaking in clear, but imperfect, French.
Contrary to what Mr. Valentine Chirol, the
Times' correspondent who was in Persia a
year ago, says on the subject, M. Domnitsky
asserts that the present Shah has but a
limited harem, 20 wives as compared to
the 200 that his 'father had. The personal
Guards of the sovereign come from the
Kadjar tribe, in which the present dynasty
originated. “This was formerly the hand
somest and most warlike tribejin Persia ;
one still finds traces of this racial beauty
in the masculine and regular features of
the soldiers of the Guards.” The ordinary
Persian soldier is most unimposing in rag
ged uniform. Unpaid, servilely anxious to
please, he is generally employed either in
selling melons, or in household duties for
the officials, who seem to resemble the
Anglo-Indians of those legendary days when
no official thought of having to pay any of
his servants himself, except the Ayah.
Two of M. Domnitsky’s adventures deserve
mention. At his house in the suburbs of
Teheran he got to be upon charming terms
with his gardener’s little orphan niece,
Fatima, a child four years old. She had all
her meals with him, learning to use a fork
and a spoon, and trying to teach him
Persian and he wanted to adopt her and
take her to St. Petersburg ; but any attempt
to do so would have resulted in the
massacre of all the parties concerned. Per
sian fanaticism also appears in the law
which forbids, upon pain of death, any
Feringhi seeing a Persian woman dance.
At the risk of his life, a genial Persian
friend of M. Domnitsky insisted upon his
coming to a dance at his house. Some
wonderful examples of agility were wit
nessed ; but the police had surrounded
the house, and M. Domnikky only escaped
arrest by his friend assuming an English
disguise (such is our prestige even in
Teheran) and driving off with a riding-whip
the two policeman who had stopped the
Russian. It is evident tint though Persia
is a Shiah and therefore an unorthodox
land,its fanaticism is extreme, M. Domnitsky
laments the increased power, under the
present Shah, of the Mullahs, the mouch-
leids and the reids, the desczadauti ot th3
Prophet. If half of these could be hanged,
there might be some hope ot Persian pro
gress. I credible as. it may seem, these
holy men k 10 v ho v ti np pe a tribute of
one-tenth upon many foreign enterprises
in Persia, otherwise they would declare the
foreign product concerned to be “ pedges,”
impure and forbidden. It is for this reason,
says M. Domnitsky, that no foreigner has yet
thought it prudent to build a flour-mill
and give the Persians clean flour,
LIStTICL voaras win not apply to municipal- ?
j ties. All plague expenditure incurred in a
: municipal town will ordinarily be held to be |
local and not provincial, unless any part of |
it can be clearly shown to have been in- ;
i curred for the protection of the province as |
a whole under the express direction of the |
Government. Ordinarily a municipality will ;
bear all local plague expenditure without
assistance from general revenues, and if
1 any temporary assistance is required in any
: case it will take the form of loans. From
this the conclusion would seem to follow, as
’ part of the new policy, that if in municipal
towns the Government are no longer to pay
: the piper, they will be content to forego the
privilege of calling the tune.
==- = ----- ===== ---==-=—a :
The CIVIL AND MILITARY GAZETTE. I
LAHORE, NOVEMBER 29, 1903.
TRAVELS IN NORTH PERSIA.
How little we know of the other side of
the shield in Persia, or of how the Empire of
the Lion and the Sun appears when viewed
from the North. The people of North Per
sia, too, including, unfortunately, the capital,
have a different Weltanscannung from their
----- ... c.ic re ... . J...
trils. Persian houses, often commodious,
with wide facades of glass, are of an in
credible discomfort, the rooms badly ar
ranged, and the staircases commonly un
manageably steep. M. Domnitsky's conclusion
is that, with all his pure Aryan type, his
good looks and his genial manner, the Per
sian is no more than a native, and a rather
weak sort at that. Just as much as the
Chinaman, he has been petrified by the
tyranny of religion, and by congealed tradi-
tion upon all kinds of absurd subjects.
His only strongly marked aptitude is for
commerce, and even here he cannot take
a high flight : there are no millionaires in
Persia. The typical Persian is rather a
petty tradesman. No Persian, for that
matter, could become very rich without ex
posing himself to the Government squeeze.
There are villages in the mountains de
liberately so hidden away that the tax-collect
ors do not knew of their existence. Much
of the population of the North is drained
away to the Russian labour-markets. “ The
Persian who has ventured beyond the Rus
sian frontier brings back a taste for civilisa
tion, and a love for Russia.” All Persians
of the north would become Russian subjects
if they could manage it, and if they were
not deterred by religious considerations. As
Persian soldier is most unimposing in rag.
ged uniform. Unpaid, servilely anxious to
please, he is generally employed either in
selling melons, or in household duties for
the officials, who seem to resemble the
Anglo-Indians of those legendary days when
no official thought of having to pay any of
his servants himself, except the Ayah.
Two of M. Domnitsky’s adventures deserve
mention. At his house in the suburbs of
Teheran he got to be upon charming terms
with his gardener’s little orphan niece,
Fatima, a child four years old. She had all
her meals with him, learning to use a fork
and a spoon, and trying to teach him
Persian and he wanted to adopt her and
take her to St. Petersburg ; but any attempt
to do so would have resulted in the
massacre of all the parties concerned. Per
sian fanaticism also appears in the law
which forbids, upon pain of death, any
Feringhi seeing a Persian woman dance.
At the risk of his life, a genial Persian
friend of M. Domnitsky insisfed upon his
coming to a dance at his house. Some
wonderful examples of agility ware wit
nessed ; but the police had surrounded
the house, and M. Domnikky only escaped
arrest by his friend assuming an English
disguise (such is our prestige even in