Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎447r] (18/238)

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The Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. .
others, more remote, have established, or are engaged in
establishing, a Iterative commerce and profitable enterprises.
A much more important role is rightly assigned by Captain
Mahan to the countries between the Mediterranean and the
PersianGulf. If their resources,asyet soverylittledeveloped,
be indeed less than those of China, they are nevertheless
sufficiently vast to satisfy the loftiest ambitions. Unlike
China, their populations are susceptible of Western culture,
and are among the most easily governed in the world. And,
while China may be compared to a land upon which the
roads converge, forming the goal towards which they tend,
these countries—Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor-
lie on the principal highway to that goal. The American
naval 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. discusses at some length the alternative of the
long circumnavigation by the Cape of Good Hope. He
rejects it in a weighty argument with which he mingles a
little scorn. He regards the canal of Suez, and the pro
posed canal across the isthmus of Central America, as the
main pivots round which the politics of the Old and the New
Worlds are destined to revolve. Directing his vision to
the struggle between Great Britain and Russia in Asia, he
warns us against the dangers of a Russian advance to the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . On the Gulf, Russia outflanks the Afghanistan
position and places herself upon our main line of communi
cations with India and the Far East. Such an advance
would, in his opinion, materially improve her prospects both
of initiating and of sustaining operations in India. We
should have her on the flank of our great dependency, con
trolling the issue of any railway from the Mediterranean
through Mesopotamia, and barring the way to its prolonga
tion towards India. It is a consummation which would
carry with it—I quote his actual words “ a perpetual
menace in war.’' It would entail on our part the mainte
nance in Indian waters of a large and costly fleet. To lock
her up in the Gulf would involve an exhausting effort to
Great Britain and her natural allies. I would add myself
that the presence of Russia on the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. would go