'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎88] (121/714)

PERSIA
same time to co-operate in the amicable enterprise by constructing-
„ similar road upon their side of the boundary which should meet
the Russian road, and eventually link Ashkabad by a carriageable
highway with Kuchan and Meshed. The Persian section of the
road was entrusted to General Gasteiger Khan, an Austrian
Engineer officer in the service of the Shah. Before the close of
1888 the Russian section, thirty miles in length, had reached the
frontier ; but the Persian, it is needless to add, had scarcely been
commenced and showed no signs of progress. Irritated at this
delay, and at the advantage presumed to have been gained by Great
Britain in the Karun Concession of 1888, Russia now put on the
screw at the Persian Court; and, among the stipulations of a secret
agreement which has not been divulged, insisted upon the immediate
completion of the Ashkabad-Kuchan road. The Shah did not
relish the injunction, but was powerless to resist. General Gas
teiger Khan was relieved of his office, it being variously alleged
that he had quarrelled with the Governor-General of Khorasan, and
that he had been found secretly corresponding with the Russians;
and the contract was entrusted to the Malek-et-Tajar or Head of
the Merchants' Guild at Meshed, who undertook to complete the
work in a year at a cost of 13,000L receiving in return a conces
sion of the rest-houses, wells, and collection of tolls along the route.
This was the situation when I travelled upon the road in the
beginning of October 1889.
Leaving Ashkabad in a southerly direction, the road strikes
across the plain towards the mountains. It is ot uniform width,
Russian twenty-five feet, and, although near the town it was full
section 0 f holes, yet the gradients, even in the steepest parts, are
such as to render it easily available for the passage of artillery.
At a distance of eight miles it reaches the foot of the hills and then
winds up a lateral valley parallel to the axis of the main range of
the Kopet Dagh. Later on an ascent in zigzags commences, lead
ing, at a distance of fifteen miles, into a narrow mountain gorge,
at whose bottom is a stony torrent bed, empty when 1 passed it,
but evidently liable to a sudden rush of water in times of melting
snow or flood. It must ,be economy rather than any practical
object that has induced the Russians to cross and recross this
torrent-bed, not by bridges, but by a rough stone causeway built
through the channel itself, and already in many places broken up
and swept away. A second series of zigzags leads, at about the
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