'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎76] (107/714)

76
PERSIA
wires conduct from Kizil Arvat to Bivjnurd, and tlience to Chikishliar
and Astrabad, from Karibent to Sarakhs, from Merv to Takhta
The Bazaar (Penjdeh), from Charjui to Khiva, from Bokhara
telegraph station to Bokhara town, and, I was informed, from
Charjui to the advanced post of Kerki on the Oxus. Elsewhere it
has been reported that the service in .the latter case is performed
by pigeon-post. The question of connecting the Russian wires
from their advanced point at Sarakhs or Takhta Bazaar with those
of India via Afghanistan, touching Herat and Kandahar on the
way, and thereby of providing an alternative overland telegraphic
route from Europe to India, is one that has suggested itself to
certain English and Indian authorities. But, apart from the
advisability of the project, which is open to question, the circum
stances are not at present such as would be favourable to its
execution.
On the occasion of my first visit to Transcaspia in 1888, the
duration of the journey from Uzun Ada to Samarkand—a distance
Speed and 900 miles—was seventy-two hours. This has now been
service reduced for the passenger and postal trains, which run two
or three times a week, according to the season, to a little over sixty
hours, of which ten are consumed in stoppages. Slower trains,
mixed passenger and merchandise, circulate every day, and occupy
about fifteen hours longer in the transit. Refreshment cars of
moderate but serviceable quality are now attached to the trains,
and have replaced the stationary buffets, except at the larger
stations.
The figures of receipts and cost of working of the Transcaspian
Railway, which are sometimes officially published, sometimes
Balance- communicated by General Annenkoff to newspaper
sheet correspondents, and sometimes gleaned from private
sources, are unfortunately as conflicting as the different estimates
which have at various times been derived from the same variety of
sources of the original cost of construction. The working expenses
of 1887 showed an excess of 40,000/. above the receipts ; those of
1888 an excess of 30,000/. A deficit in the balance-sheet of the
same amount was expected in 1889 ; but the ' Novoe Vremya ; has
published the total of working expenses in that year as 241,731/.,
and declared that the receipts were 7,000/. in excess. General
Annenkoff, however, gave me much more ambitious figures at
Uzun Ada. The budget of M. Vishnegradski, the singularly able