Correspondence and Papers on Persia [‎21r] (42/107)

3
1 he gap between the Indian and Russian outposts has considerably'
decreased since I last wrote on this subject, and the presence of Europeans on
each side cf Afghanistan may not unreasonably be expected to have as civil
ising and pacifying an effect on the people of that country, as the presence
No. 2 is the route of all others that I favour from a commercial point
of view, and I believe that the Russian and Indian Railway and Telegraph
systems are as surely fated to meet and amalgamate as two drops of quick
silver in the same saucer.
From Chaman at the foot of the Khojak-Aomin Range to Kandahar
is a distance of some 70 miles; from Khandahar to Herat is a distance of 375
miles, and once at Herat the Russian telegraph lines would be no great
distance away. I may mention here that 1 would make Herat a junction
office, whence one line would strike off to the north and join the Russian
system, following their Trans-Caspian Railway to its terminus near Krasno-
rodsk, thence by cable to Baku or Petrovsk ( the former south and the latter
north of the Caucasus Range) and thence, via Tiflis to Odessa, Warsaw,
Berlin and London. This would he the line from Baku, while that from
Petrovsk would take a more northerly route, passing probably through
Astrakhan, Rostoff, Charkoff and Kielf to Berlin and thence to London.
The other line from Herat I would take to the Perso-Afghan Frontier at
Kuhsan and thence to Meshed, whence there is a line, which I believe was
specially repaired at the time of the Afghan Boundary Commission, to Tehe
ran, at which place the existing trunk-line between Europe and India would
be joined.
Since my pamphlet on an “ Overland Line through Quetta, Kandahar and
Herat’’ was written in August IS85, a broad gauge (o'ff) line of railway and
several telegraph wires have been carried up to the Khojak-Amran Range and
will eventually terminate at Chaman on the Kandahar side of the hills.
Thence to Herat there are no physical difficulties to a telegraph engineer and
a substantial telegraph line could be easily and rapidly constructed- Iron
posts could be railed on the one side to Quetta and on the other to Merv, or
whatevei point on the I rans-Caspian Railway is the most convenient, anil
the cost of such a line would not be abnormally high—local transport, almost
all of which would be done by camels, would be the highest item.
I now come to the possibility and cost of maintenance, and 1 think I mav
safely say that with the support of the ruler of the country, the presence of
British representatives at Kandahar and Herat, the employment of local
labour and the payment of a small subsidy to local chiefs, the line, after the
people of the country had become accustomed to it, would not be seriously
molested.
Surely if the Persian Government can maintain its lines alon<r the
Turkoman Frontier we can do so in Southern Afghanistan.