Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume XLIX, No. 2527 [‎696v] (18/36)

430
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
\_April 26, 1901.
this is conclusive against the suggestion that Xearchus
was but following a track known to Alexander before,
and that it was followed merely to lighten the march
of the army returning through Gadrosia and Car-
mania to Susa and Babylon. Neither return expedi
tion was of a strictly military character—the one on
foot, indeed, was for the greater part of its way but
a military triumph—and both expeditions kept the
scientific and commercial objects they had in view
clearly before them. On this point Humboldt, as quoted
by McCrindle, says:—“The Macedonian campaign
which opened so large and beautiful a portion of the
earth to the influence of one sole highly-gifted race,
may, therefore, certainly be regarded in the strictest
sense as a scientific expedition, and, moreover,
as the first in which a conqueror had surrounded
himself with men learned in all departments of
science as naturalists, geometricians, historians,
philosophers, and artists.” The scientific staff
of Alexander’s expedition included, among those
individually named, an itinerographer, who mea
sured and recorded the distance of his marches;
a stathmographer, who located and described his
halting places ; a journalist, who edited the
Ephemerides of the expedition; a diarist, who
recorded anecdotes of Alexander’s private life;
three geographers; three hydrographers; at least
six general historians; and besides these there were
the commercial travellers. Except journalists—who
are freelances—we have no specialists of the sort
with our armed levies in South Africa, or with
our military force in China ; but we are sending out a
scientific voyage of remote discovery to the South Pole!
Sir Thomas Holdich had referred to some of the geo
graphical folk-lore of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , and in this con
nection he (Sir George Birdwood) regretted that his
paper made no mention of the island placed by Xearchus
about 1,000 stadia beyond Kishm, and named by him
Kataia. It is usually identified with the modern
Kish or Kais, which, between the decline of Siraf and
the rise of Ormuz, was the great emporium of the trade
through Anterior Asia between the West and East.
The Persian tradition, according to Sir William
Ouseley, is that the island derived its name from one
Kais, the son of a poor widow of Siraf, who going on a
voyage in the 10 th century- to India, made a fortune
there by selling his favourite cat to a raja King whose
palace was so overrun with rats that they snatched
the food from him before he could carry it to his
mouth. [See Asher's “ Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin
of Tudela,” vol. ii., pp. 175-8 ; also Lyson’s “ Story
of Whittington and his Cat.”] If this is an
authentic 10 th century legend, it is the original
story of “ Dick Whittington and his Cat,” and
Gates,” Herat [“Alexandria in Aria”], and the Cabul
\ alley to Faxila on the Indus ; and thence either across into
the valley of the Ganges, and by Patna [“ Palimbethra ”] to
the Bay of Bengal, or down the Indus to the sea. The
special Phoenician route, was from Petra, across the Arabian
desert to Gherra, at the back of the bay which shelters the
pearl fisheries of the palm-tufted islands of Bahrein.
many here present would be interested to know
whether Sir Thomas Holdich heard anything of it
locally, and whether he identifies Kaish, Keish, Kyes,
Qas—however it should be spelt or pronounced—with
Kataia. In conclusion, he would only beg to repeat
the expression of his grateful sense of the deep obli
gation they were all under to Sir Thomas Holdich for
his valuable and most interesting paper, which as a
weighty piece of scientific geographical criticism was.
as appropriate and fine a tribute as could possibly
have been offered to “ the noble dust of Alexander.”
Mr. B. T. Ffinch, C.I.E., referred to the tele
graph line along the Makran coast. In 1863 , when that
line was built, the officers, finding, as they approached
the Kara range of mountains, that it was impossible
to continue inland, approached the sea nearer and
nearer until they came to that part where the moun
tain dipped into the sea, with cliffs 2,000 feet high.
There being no way of crossing the mountain from
the east, it was decided to lay a cable round the
mountain. That was done, but the cable was very
quickly destroyed through rubbing on the rocks.
It was then found that there was a goat path from
the west which led to the top of the mountain, and
the telegraph material was carried up, and eventu
ally the line was constructed across the mountain.
The cliff on the east side being 2,000 feet high, a post
was placed horizontally on the top of the mountain^
and a wire dropped to a post at the base. A guard
was stationed at the foot of the mountain, and another
guard at the top, and the only way in which they
could communicate with each other, whether the line
was in order or not, was by the firing of their guns.
It took a clever Beluch-man seven days to go from
the post at the bottom to the post at the top, because
they had to traverse a roundabout route in order to
get there. After passing the mountain, the posts were
erected on the sea beach, and during the monsoon
months especially, the line worked very unsatisfac
torily, as it was extremely damp. In addition to this,
it was constantly being interrupted by the falling
rock. The result was that some other way had to be
found for the telegraph line. He said to the assistant
that he believed there was a way inland up the bed of
a river, but, of course, that was useless for a tele
graph line. He had also been informed that
there was another pass—the Asses Pass, there
being a legend that an ass had been ass enough
to go that way. Eventually, however, the line
was carried through that pass. A camel track
was cut on the side of the mountain, and, after three
years, they were able to move the line. He wished
to correct what Sir Thomas Holdich had said by
stating that the track along which the telegraph now
went was really the route of the country. It was.
universally used for going to Ormara from Sonnaiani
and other parts of the coast. Sir Thomas Holdich
had not mentioned in his paper the mud volcano
which existed near Ras Kachari. It was quite
possible that that was not in existence 3,000