'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎74] (105/714)

PERSIA
troops could not, owing to the sinuous channel, be towed up stream
by the two steamers, the ' Czar' and ' Czaritsa.' Furthermore, at
that time the normal period consumed by the steamers
in reaching Kerki, a distance of only 140 miles, was a
week. This seems, however, to have been since reduced, in the
case of the up-stream journey, to four days, and of the down
stream journey to three days, the boats in neither case proceeding
bv night. Further improvements will be required before the river
navigation can lie of much commercial value in transporting
merchandise to or from Afghanistan; whilst it will be still longer
before, as a strategical auxiliary, it adds much to the offensive
strength of Russia in Central Asia.
As regards Merv, and the heroic measures that I found in
progress a year before for the resuscitation of the Merv Oasis by the
Merv irri- reconstruction of the Sultan Bund across the Murghab,
gation and thirtv-five miles above modern Merv, and the irrigation
the Sultan J .... .
of the property which is administered out of the private
purse of the Czar, I heard disparaging remarks, which threw
doubt upon the ultimate success of the undertaking. It was said
that the Murghab was found not to hold sufficient water to admit
of irrigation or canalisation on any largely extended scale ; while
the evaporation from the lake above the dam was expected to
exhaust the bulk of its contents. On the other hand, an English
Engineer officer, visiting the works not long afterwards, was, I be
lieve. most favourably impressed both with the skill and with the
work already accomplished by Col. Kozell-Poklefski, the engineer; 1
and the latter gentleman was understood to have no doubts about
the success of his scheme.' 2 That there must, however, be some
uncertainty as to the results is, I think, clear from the conflicting
1 Vide an interesting paper by the officer in question, Col. H. L. Wells, R.E.,
published in vol. xv. of the Occasional Papers of the Royal Engineers, 1889.
2 That my information, however, and my forebodings were correct was demon
strated in the autumn of 1890, when it leaked out that M. Poklefski's great dam
was a failure, having been swept away, or at least seriously damaged, by a flood
on the Murghab ; and when the Imperial landlord, at the same time that he
was banishing Englishmen from Transcaspia, was driven to request from the
British Government the loan of the services of an English official, Sir Colin Mon-
creiff, who had attained a conspicuous success in charge of the irrigation works of
the Nile. There was a delicious iron}' in the spectacle of an Englishman being
solicited to repair the blunders of Russians at Merv. In consequence of Sir C.
Moncreiff's report, M. Poklefski's plans have been in the main abandoned, and a
new scheme of irrigation is to be tried.