"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٤‎١‎٩] (١٢٦٢/٩٣٦)

2419
with an interruption to traffic of only 12 hours. The old cable was then
brought to the surface to the eastward of Tunb Island where on the 9th
of December it was cut and the portion of it running towards Bushehr
connected with the new length. The a Amberwitch " then hastened to
a point off Kuh-i-Mubarak where the other juncture was effected in a
similar fashion, traffic having been suspended upon this occasion for
52i hours only, of which 21 were occupied by the Ambermitch in
steaming from the one end of the new section to the other. Meanwhile
the staff and materials at Telegraph Islet were smartly transferred to
Jashk; and by noon on the Uth of December 1868 Jashk was in full
communication with Bushehr through the new cable, as well as with
India through the old.
At first there was no office on Han jam and the two ends of cable
landed there were, as a temporary measure, directly united. Subsequently
however a station was established at the north end of the island, and the
teakwood house which had sheltered the staff at Telegraph Islet was
re-erected there. The island of Hanjam was claimed by the Sultan of
'Oman, but the British authorities of the day regarded it as belonging
to Persia, and on the 29th of March 1868 an authorisation for the
establishment of a telegraph station on Hanjam had been accepted by
them from the Persian Government.
The boundaries and status of the telegraph station at Jashk were
first formally defined in an A greement between the British and Persian
Governments dated 25th February 1887, which appears to have been
modified, in so far as the boundaries were concerned, by a local arrange
ment made in the following year. The telegraph officials and their
" true, positive and salaried servantswere expressly exempted from pay
ment of customs dues, whether on goods from abroad or on supplies from
the interior, and they were debarred from affording sanctuary to Persian
subjects unconnected with them.
Persian
authorisation
of the
Han jam
station, 29th
March 1868.
Anglo-
Persian
Agreem ent
relating to
the Jas'hk
station, 25th
February
1887.
Provision of an Indo-European line entirely through Persia,
alternative to that through Turkey, 1865-1870.
Soon after the establishment of communication between India and Bad working
Europe by way of Baghdad it became evident that the working of the ^. e
Turkish sections, that is of the lines from Fao to Baghdad, from Khanaqin ^1, 18
to Baghdad and from Baghdad by Constantinople to the Austrian
frontier, was hopelessly inefficient and was likely to remain so. In
1866 messages for India sometimes did not reach Constantinople until
more than 10 days after their despatch from London ; and a two months'
visit paid by Colonel Goldsmid to the Turkish capital in 1866, while on
Ms way to Tehran for the second time, was productive of no good
results; indeed the working of the Turkish lines was never more deplorable
^ban it became at the end of 1866 and beginning of 1867, and the
irregularity of the line was even more fatal to commercial success than
162 A