'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎429] (520/748)

THE PERSIAN GULF The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
42^
established in those parts. When the telegraph station had been
first opened at Jask in 1869, the cape was a barren piece of sand
to which no claimant turned a thought. This tiny military settle
ment remained unnoticed and unobjected to until 1886, when the
Persian Government, hearing that a small trade had sprung up
since the arrival of the English, sent an agent to establish a
custom-house. This individual detected an opportunity of personal
distinction which was not to be missed. In a highly-coloured
report, he represented the English as exercising sovereign rights
upon Persian territory, and acquiring undue political influence over
the Beluchi tribes (the village sheikh received a few rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. a year
for the preservation of the wire running through the district) ; and
himself as having by valiant measures restored seventeen town
ships to the Persian allegiance. He received his decoration, and
subsided into satisfied obscurity. The two local sheikhs, however,
who were quite innocent of anything in the nature of a conspiracy,
were carried off in chains, and were only released after a long im
prisonment. Meanwhile the Shah appealed to the Indian Govern
ment to withdraw the sepoys Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. . Under similar conditions Russia
would doubtless have replied, J'y suis, fy reste. The Viceroy, how
ever, respecting the susceptibilities of the Shah, and having no
further need for the service of land-troops since the police of
the Gulf is now so well assured, withdrew the detachment, and the
quarters which they occupied at Jask are now empty.
In their place has been built a square fort, which I found
tenanted by a Persian deputy-governor, subordinate to the Saad-
Modern el-Mulk, with a guard of forty soldiers commanded by a
Jask corporal. He has no raison d'etre except to assert Persian
sovereignty over the strip of soil on which he is located, and to
overawe the tribes in the interior by the display of his dingy body
guard. The Persian authority here, as elsewhere along this coast^
is cordially detested by the local tribes, who have been accustomed
to a life of independence, and who resent the appearance of the tax-
collector and the serbaz, as the death-warrant of their old freedom.
On shore, the British telegraph station and its surroundings, where
there is a staff of six English officials, and in front of which the
British ensign floats from a flagstaff, betray that neat and orderly
appearance which may everywhere be associated with an English,
habitation, from Plymouth to Yokohama. Some trees have been
planted, a fresh-water tank has been constructed, a little, garden laid