"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٦‎٢‎٧] (٧١٤/٦٩٦)

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RAILWAYS
627
koff, which have placed her in a position of such overwhelming
superiority with reference to Khorasan, that a separate railway is
not needed to expedite her advance, and which have opened to her
other and far better avenues of approach either to Meshed or
Herat.
I have, in the fifth chapter of this volume, discussed the
project of a railway from the Russian capital of Transcaspia, via
5. Ashk- Kuchan, to Meshed, which route I have there minutely
?£ )a 4' described. It will have been evident from what was
Kuchan-
Mesbed there said that, simple as would be the construction of a
railroad across the almost level plain from Kuchan to Meshed,
neither the Russian nor the Persian sections of the made roadway
between Ashkabad and Kuchan have been engineered with a view
to rails being laid upon or near to them, and that it may, accord
ingly, be presumed that Russia has abandoned any such notion.
While I was at Meshed, however, another and far more feasible
project of railway connection between the Russian dominions in
, Transcasnia and the capital of Khorasan was mentioned
6. Dushak- . . .. , „ J
Sarakhs- for the first time, and is said to have been reierred to a
Meshed S p ec i a i military committee in the Caucasus, by the
Governor -General of which territory. Prince Dondoukoff-KorsakofF,
it was believed to be strongly recommended. This was the scheme
for a Russian branch line from the station of Dushak on the Trans-
caspian Railway to Meshed. ' Such a line would, in all probability,
pass via the frontier outpost of Sarakhs, and would, in that case,
constitute a first instalment of the ultimate Russian extension to
Herat, thereby killing two birds—by threatening both Meshed and
the Afghan frontier—with one stone. In the spring of the past
year (1891) it has been announced that General Annenkoff is
pressing strongly for the Dushak-Sarakhs extension ; whilst later
reports render it likely that the same result will be attained by a
branch line, not from Dushak, but from Karibent on the Trans-
Caspian Railway to Sarakhs. Up to that point the undertaking
might menace, but would not be a violation of, the agreement
with Persia. It could only be extended into Persia —i.e.
towards Meshed—by abandoning the policy embodied in the
document referred to, and thereby throwing open the door to
foreign railroad competition in other parts of the country. For
these reasons, and because the military position of Russia with
reference to Khorasan is already so well assured as to render any
s s 2