'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎58] (89/714)

CHAPTER III
FROM LONDON TO ASIIKAHAD
i to the Orient from the drooping West,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
Shakspeaee, Induction to Henry IV., Part II.
I t was in the latter part of September 1889 that I left Paris by the
new Orient express which, after leaving Pesth, runs via Belgrade,
Journey Sofia, and Adrianople to Constantinople. Through Servia,
to 0 C(m- ariS Bulgaria, and Turkey the pace was little better than a
stantinopie C1 ' a wl, but nevertheless the terminus was reached in time.
There can be no doubt that the journey, which now takes sixty-
nine and a half hours, and which I have again made since under
similarly irritating conditions, could without difficulty be ac
celerated by at least six or eight hours, a suggestion which it seems
useless to commend to the directors of the lines concerned. The
discomforts of arrival at Constantinople and departure therefrom
are well known, and have tested the patience of many travellers.
But the horrors of the boat-landing, which could be assuaged by
bribes, are as nothing compared with those of the Customs exami
nation, which is now pursued with a merciless incivility that only
Turkish officials can display, at the newly opened railway station at
Stambul. I was the bearer of a courier's passport and was met by
an Embassy havass at the station. But notwithstanding these evi
dences of respectability I was detained there for an hour and a
quarter, my boxes were ruthlessly overhauled, my stores, accumulated
and carefully packed for Persian travel, were broken into, and a box
containing a few watches which I was taking out as small gifts in
return for civilities in Persia, having been pounced upon, was hailed
as triumphant evidence of a sinister disguise, and was immediately
mulcted by a duty. If this system, or rather the manner in which
it is enforced, be maintained, travellers are more likely to be repelled
from Constantinople than attracted to it by the overland route.
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