'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎72] (103/714)

72
PERSIA
and terminus could be permanently fixed in a sliallow bay, commonly
frozen over in winter, and presenting no advantages for the storage
or embarkation of merchandise or for the debarkation ot troops.
General Annenkoff, however, had all the affection for Uzun Ada
that a parent feels for a single and sickly child, and his attitude
assured me that he would fight against the change with all the
energy of desperation. He asked me of what good were twenty-four
feet of water when the only vessels that were required were those with
a draught of fourteen feet; where could be seen better piers than the
wooden erections at Uzun Ada; and, when I pointed to the bales
of cotton strewn pell-mell in every direction and awaiting shipment,
where could more ample space be found than in their present
resting-place ? The only valid arguments against the change
appeared to me to be the capital that had already been sunk in
Uzun Ada, and the cost of the additional fifty-three miles of railway
that will be required, entailing a corresponding increase in freight
charges. Such an increase, however, will probably be more than
counterbalanced for traders by the reduced cost ot transport to
Baku, which stands at 10 kopecks a poud from Uzun Ada, but
might, it is said, be reduced to 5 kopecks a poud from Krasnovodsk.
The deviation of the line, as decided upon, will start from the
station of Mullah Kari, thirty-two miles from Uzun Ada, and will
run to Krasnovodsk, a distance of eighty-five miles.
o J
Between the stations of Bala Ishem and Kazanjik, I heard of
a realignment of the railroad for a distance of sixty miles ; but,
having passed over this portion of the line in the night,
Further T & 1 , , f ^
improve- 1 cannot say whether tins description was correct, or
whether the rails were merely relaid. The naphtha
wells of Bala Ishem, to which a Decauville railway was originally
laid, have ceased to be worked; the cost of production, in the
absence of any refineries on the east coast of the Caspian, being
greater than that of transport from the stills of Baku.
At Kizil Arvat, 1G0 miles from Uzun Ada, a large workshop
had been fitted up, at a cost of 50,000/., by an English engineer
resident in St. Petersburg, for the repair and. it was
Workshop . .
at Kizil said, the manufacture of locomotives, and for the general
stations mechanical requirements of the line. He was expressly
culverts, prohibited from employing foreign materials or workmen,
and bridges * i ^ & to
these works, when completed, would give permanent
employment to 600 men. The buildings were already illuminated