'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎12] (19/714)

Xll
riiJtsiA
expressed are therefore, in eveiy case, those of a private individual
only, and have been formed in entire independence of official
authority or inspiration.
As regards orthography, T have endeavoured to strike a mean
between popular usage and academic precision, preferring to incur
the charge of looseness to that of pedantry. The transliteration
of Persian or Arabic names into a language which is deficient in
the symbols that represent some of their sounds is intrinsically
difficult, and is complicated in this case by the Indian pronuncia
tion of Persian names, with which Englishmen are more apt to be
familiar, but which is not that encountered in Persia itself. In
many cases 1 have bowed to convention, which after a time consti
tutes a law, spelling Bushire rather than Abu Shehr, and Meshed
rather than Mash had. Elsewhere 1 have endeavoured to combine
approximate accuracy with as faithful a reproduction as possible
of the sound of the native pronunciation. If I have sometimes
been betrayed into inconsistencies, they are such as it is almost
impossible to escape.
Should these volumes in any degree correspond to the fond
ideal of the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. , it will only be because of the lavish assistance
of which 1 have been the fortunate recipient. Neither my journey
nor my studies would have availed for this object had they not
been reinforced by the ready co-operation of everv authority upon
the subject to whom I have appealed, and more especially by a
flood of information, extending to tlu j very date of issue, which
has reached me from correspondents in Persia itself. Neither
could I have published these pages with any real confidence in
their accuracy had they not, in the order of their composition, been
despatched to Teheran for revision by more competent hands than
my own, as well as been submitted, in many cases, to the judgment
of equally eminent authorities at home.
Of these coadjutors the first, alike in authority, and in the
extent of his assistance, has been General A. Houtum-Schindler,
a gentleman who, after filling many important posts in the Persian
Service, is now acting as adviser to the Imperial Bank of Persia