Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎445r] (14/238)

The Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
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ancient Oriental lattices vanished from the window frames,
and in their place smug - plate-glass and polished knockers.
We shall then discover that two of the biggest and most
clamorous of our neighbours in Europe have come down
upon our seclusion in India by different routes for change
of air.
Yes, but like most similes, this one is only partial. We
of the Central Asian Society have not .confined ourselves,
whether as travellers or as thinkers, to the purely scientific
and academic side of our subjects. Our labours have lain
in the countries surrounding or adjacent to India ; and none
of us have been able, even had we been willing, to divert
and divorce our attention from the momentous political
problems which are forced upon us in those lands. The
truth is that all these countries have constituted up to the
present time a kind of No-man’s-land. And in the case of
the vast territories bordering upon the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , it is alone
due to the long and persistent efforts of our countrymen
that they enjoy the blessings of uninterrupted communica
tion with the great markets of Europe, of which the wares
have reached them under the protection of the British flag,
to be spread into their inmost recesses by land avenues that
have been opened up by the pioneer enterprise of British
merchants. We have therefore acquired vested interests
in the property of our neighbours, as well as the right
to demand, and, if necessary, to require that they shall not
alienate their estates, in however veiled and tentative a
manner, without obtaining our consent. Our case is
strengthened by the fact that already on two occasions
our arms have been employed in defending these rights.
I have spoken of our trade-routes from the Gulf to the
interior; let me now endeavour to group them under
convenient categories. The first includes the various
avenues ramifying from ports on the Persian littoral, of
which the objective are the cities of Southern Persia—
Kerman, Yezd, Shiraz, Isfahan. A separate place may be
assigned to the newly-developed Seistan route, which,
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