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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [218r] (438/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
■
FROM MESHED TO TEHERAN 255
from which strangers can afford to abstain. Perhaps I shall not
inaptly conclude this digression upon the Persian post-horse and
postal system if I quote the sententious observation with which
Tavernier prefaced his Persian travels more than three centuries ago :
-A. man cannot travel in Asia as they do in Europe j nor at the same
hours, nor with the same ease. 5
The road from Meshed to Teheran is one whose intrinsic attrac
tion is so small that no one would ever be found to traverse it but for
General ^ necess i t y ^ getting from one place to the other. For
character the entire distance of 560 miles there is scarcelv a single
o± road J &
object oi beauty, and but few of interest. The scenery,
at any rate in the late autumn, is colourless and desolate. The
road, or rather track, winds over long, stony plains, across unlovely
mountains, and through deserted villages and towns. There is
frequent and abundant evidence that the country traversed was
once far more densely or less sparsely populated, and for that reason
more carefully tended, than it is at present. The traveller passes
towns which have been entirely abandoned, and display only a melan
choly confusion of tottering walls and fallen towers. He observes
citadels and fortified posts which have crumbled into irretrievable
decay, and are now little more than shapeless heaps of mud. He
sees long lines of choked and disused kanats, the shafts of the
underground wells by which water was once brought to the
lands from the mountains. The walls of the cities are in ruins and
exhibit yawning gaps; the few public buildings of any note are
falling to pieces ; rows of former dwellings have been abandoned
to dust-heaps and dogs. The dirty, desecrated cemeteries that
stretch for hundreds of yards outside every town of any size, in
which the tombstones are defaced and the graves falling in, are not
more lugubrious in appearance than is the interior, where the living
seem to be in almost as forlorn a plight as the dead. The utmost
that the traveller can expect in the way of incident—an expectation
m which I have already said that I was disappointed—is that his
chajpar horse should tumble down, to break, if not its own knees,
at any rate the paralysing monotony of the journey.
But though the route be thus devoid of external attraction, it
has a twofold interest, historical and practical. The traveller is not
TJ . , merely pursuing 1 the track that has been worn by count-
Its lessons , ^ 1 ° J
less thousands of pilgrims for at least 500 years, but he
is following the stormy wake of armies, and treading in the foot-
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [218r] (438/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213844.0x00002d> [accessed 5 June 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain