'Report on the Preliminary Survey of The Route for The Central Persia Telegraph Line from Quetta to Bam and Pahra' [‎55r] (114/162)

*5
attempt to divert trade from a place like Kerman to India, vid the present Nushki
route, appears almost as hopeless as if one tried to divert trade with, say,
Mandalay and Madras along some katcha road line via Calcutta, instead of
allowing it to go by the direct land route to Rangoon, and thence bv sea. The
analogy I have here used is slightly exaggerated, but it may not be out of place.
I will again refer to Captain Webb Ware’s report (1899-1900). Paragraphs
77 and 78, Appendix II, contain his views on opening up a trade route between
Koh i-Malik Seah and Kerman, and in paragraph 77 are particulars of the cir
cumstances under which one of the caravans I have just alluded to was started.
Captain Webb Ware states that this caravan left Kerman on the 14th January,
and reached Koh-i-Malik Seah 14 days later. The distance between Kerman
and Koh-i-Malik Seah is, according to Mr. Wood’s and my measurements, 19
marches, or a little over 328 miles. It is unlikely that a caravan will travel
this in 14 days, unless perhaps the owner of it is having a race for a big stake.
Paragraph 77 continues : “ The Krayakashes reported on their arrival at Killa
Robat that they had had an uneventful but cold journey, and they went on to
say that the track the whole way from Kerman to Robat was an excellent one,
possessing all the requirements of a good trade route, with a very fair water-
supply, whose improvement offered no serious difficulty.” Captain Webb Ware’s
optimism in trade route affairs is unbounded, and his view appears to me
to be like that obtained by placing both ends of powerful field glasses alter
nately to the eyes ; matters that admit of improvement are looked at from the
magnifying end, and those adverse are removed, or diminished, by looking at
them through the other end. Such a method of developing an object can, no
doubt, give a gratifying result, but it is scarcely practical. If this description of
the country west of Robat, which I have quoted, is meant to be taken literally,
it is not true. The caravan came across the Kerman Desert by the track, vid
Nasratabad, which Mr. Wood traversed in 1899, and a description of which is
given in his report on the Preliminary Survey of the route for the Central Persia
telegraph line (1899), under the head of the third unsuitable route. I will
make one quotation from this which wall be enough to show how misleading
is the description said to have been given by the Krayakashes above. “ Leaving
this (Nasratabad), the only habitation seen during the past four days, we
cross in a day’s march of 16 miles another range of rocky hills, and debouch
on to the Dasht-i-Lut. It takes us five long marches to cross this bleak, lonely,
and desolate wilderness of sand, where there are only two spots, Gurg and Shur-
gez, where salt water, quite unfit to drink, is obtained by digging wells. Thus
we have three stretches of 35*03, 32 05 and 31*30 miles without water, while that
procurable at Gurg and Shurgez, cannot be drunk by human beings.”
A little consideration of the geographical position of Kerman, its proximity
to a good sea port like Bundar Abbas towards the south compared to the vast
extent of desert which separates it from India on the east, w r ould, I think, show
to most people that a camel route from Kerman to Quetta w r ould have no chance
of competing with the Bundar Abbas route. The advantages of the latter are
so obviously superior to those of the former that no one, but those who could
secure extraordinary guarantees for their ventures, could be expected to travel
from Kerman to India vid the Nushki route. Where then is the use of spending
money in establishing direct trade communication between Koh-i-Mahk Seah
and Kerman such as Captain VVebb Ware suggests ? If Indian trade with
Central Persia cannot be established, and maintained, by the Gulf route, there
appears little or no prospect of assisting it by any desert camel route from
Quetta.
It is, I think, unnecessary for me to show that the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. roiuc is at
present the only practicable one to India from Southern Persia ; any reason in
favour of this route over the Nushki route from Central I crsia applies, a fortiori,.
to Southern Persia.
Eastern Persia is hardly w'orth mentioning in the present consideration for,
outside Siestan, which, for convenience, I will include in Northern Persia, it does
not contain a single town, or even village, of any importance. Peaces marked
prominently on the map, such as Ladis, Duzdap, etc., far from being towns, are
at most a conglomeration of hovels, or else mere camping grounds on y