'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎207] (242/714)

P0LI1ICS AND COAOIEECE OF KHORASAX
207
(trading from London) succeeded in reaching Meshed. One of
them, Mango Graham or Graeme, was murdered on Ids return
journey at Semnan m 1743.. The other, Von Mierop, resided for
two years and three months in Meshed, from 1743-5 but met
with little success, for he only sold 22,000 crowns, or 5,500i. worth
of goods. He returned in safety, but no one else wis found to
repeat so hazardous an experiment; and within three years'time
every British merchant had left the country, only too glad in those
stormy times to have escaped with his life.
Such was the history of the first attempt at British trade with
Meshed. During this century the shifting of the capital to
»ndLn. reheran .- the grater security of communication, and the
P If r T®, ' AbbaS r0ute from tIle Persian
Gulf on the south, have brought Meshed once again within the
sphere of British or Anglo-Indian commercial enterprise; while
her successive encroachments upon the north have given Russia
a more than corresponding advantage in that direction. Earlier
travellers have from time to time reported the growing influence of
Russian trade in these parts,' and Khorasan has, not without
apparent justice been regarded in recent years as irretrievably
lost to the British merchant.
. . ^ first si gkt this alarm would appear to be well-founded. A
visitor to the bazaars of any of the important towns of Khorasan
e ET * ^ A8tra ^ ad t0 Me8hed (^ch as Shahrud, Sebzewar,'
ascend- JNishapur, Bujuurd, Shirwan, and Kuchan), will find
en«y the evidences of Russian influence very obvious to the
outer eye. The shops appear to be laden with Russian cottons
calicoes and chintzes, with Russian sugar, crockery, and hardware'
an , indeed, with all the cheaper necessaries of civilised life'
Entering Khorasan, either via Bunder-i-Gez, Astrabad, and
ohahrud, or by Ashkabad and Kuchan, these goods flow in a
great wave from one end of the province to the other, and coml
petely drown any foreign competition in the native markets,
rench sugar used to be imported from Marseilles, via Bombay.
1 Ibid., vol. i. p. 358; vol. ii. p. 24.
= Compare Colonel Val. Baker, Clouds in the East, p. 305, ' The whole trade
Central Asia is slowly drifting into Russian hands;' and E. O'Donovan The
erv Oasis, vol. 7. p. 480, 'Russia completely controls the trade of Meshed in
C \oZ V g00dS ' eXCept PerhapS in SUgar ' a little of which come s from Marseilles
Cloths linen and cotton goods, porcelain, glass trays, lamps, and other manVfac
tured European articles are Russian.' manaiac-