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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [631r] (1278/1814)
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.
THE EASTERN AND SOUTH-EASTERN PROVINCES 251
Himalaya between British India and Tibet. Should it ever be the
fate of Persia to submit to territorial and political partition, nature
has, in this part at any rate, saved the contracting 1 or conflicting 1
parties the expense and trouble of a Boundary Commission.
Prom the Dasht-i-Kavir, or Great Salt Desert, I turn to the
Dasht-i-Lut, or Great Sand Desert, separating Khorasan in the
^ south-east from Herman, and occupying a sorrowful
Dasht-i- parallelogram between the towns of Neh and Tabbas on
Lut the north, and Kerman and Yezd on the south. Not
that this sand desert is without salt. On the contrary salt is perhaps
its chief ingredient; but it is rarely laivir, i.e. it is rarely overlaid
either with a saline incrustation or with a briny swamp ; and it
gives birth to a few miserable desert shrubs, which is a concession
to respectability that no kavir has ever vouchsafed. The Lut, which
some too ingenious critics have fancifully endeavoured to connect
with the Lot of Holy Writ, but which is apparently a local
synonym for a wilderness, 1 is situated at a much lower level than
the Dasht-i-Kavir ; for its normal elevation is less than 2,000 feet,
and in places it sinks to only 500 feet above the sea level. Upon
the maps it occupies a staring and eloquent blank. Pew travellers
have crossed it, fewer still having done so would voluntarily re
peat the experiment. Marco Polo was here, but where was not
the invincible Venetian? In the succeeding century Priar Odo-
ricus thus described its charms, calling it the Sea of Sand :—
Now that sea is a wondrous thing and right perilous. And there
were none of us who desired to enter on that sea. Por it is all of dry
sand, without any moisture, and it shifteth, as the sea doth when in
storm, now hither, now thither ; and as it shifteth it maketh waves in
like manner as the sea doth ; so that countless people travelling thereon
have been overwhelmed and drowned, and buried in those sands. Por
when blown about and buffeted by the winds, they are raised into hills,
now in this place, now in that, according as the wind chancethto blow. 2
Khanikoff crossed the Dasht-i-Lut from Neh to Kerman in
1859. Goldsmid’s party were on its borders in 1871. Colonel
1 General Schindler, in a note in the Indian Antiquary, Dec. 1887, says that
the word lut means naked, bare ; and dasht-i-lut, therefore, the naked plain, i.e.
desert. The word lat (originally piece, bit) is frequently combined with lut in
common phraseology. Hence a man lat we lut, is a man who has nothing in the
world, a beggar. From lut is derived the Persian luti, originally a sodomite, now
a popular synonym for a buffoon or rogue.
2 From Cathay and the Way thither (Hakluyt Society), No. 36-7. '
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 [631r] (1278/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213848.0x00004f> [accessed 4 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