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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [631v] (1279/1814)
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.
252 PERSIA
Stewart made an expedition into it in 1882. 1 Lieutenant Galindo
twice crossed it, once in six days, and once in five days, in 1887
and 1888, traversing a belt of 120 miles entirely without water.
His description is almost identical with that of the worthy
Minorite friar 550 years earlier. He could not fail to notice the
extraordinary resemblance presented by the blown sand to the
waves of a chopping sea. These sand billows alternate with bare
expanses of black gravel, and with a phenomenon not previously
described. This is a region of curious square-cut clay bluffs, be
lieved by the natives to be the ruins of an ancient city, and called
by them the Shehr-i-Lut, but consisting in reality of ‘ natural
formations of hard clay, cut and carved by the fierce north-west
wind into strange shapes, suggestive of walls and towers. 5 Lieu
tenant Galindo found everywhere beneath the sand a substratum
of hard rock-salt some eight or nine inches below the surface, thus
proving the saline character of the desert, and here and there
patches of genuine havir, the ground being mapped out in
irregular polygons with dividing walls of solid salt, or studded
with hard round white bubbles of the same material, like a lot of
half-buried ostrich eggs, or covered with a sort of moss of delicate-
looking salt spiculae, standing up like needles an inch long, but
strong as steel spikes. The worst part of this desert is its south
east corner between Neh and Bam, which is one of the most awful
regions on the face of the earth. 2 Here the prevailing north-west
winds have swept the sand together, and banked it up in huge
mounds and hills, ever shifting and eddying. A fierce sun beats
down upon the surface which is as fiery hot as incandescent metal;
and almost always the bad-i-sam or simoom is blowing, ‘ so desiccated
by its passage over hundreds of miles of burning desert, that if it
overtakes man or animal its parched breath in a moment sucks
every atom of moisture from his frame, and leaves him a withered
and blackened mummy.’
This horrible desert extends as far south as Bam-Narmashir,
for long the frontier district of Kerman. Its capital is Bam, 140
miles south-east of Kerman, now a big straggling
village, situated on both banks of the Bam river, amid
groves of date palms, and possessing only a mean bazaar. Bam,
1 Proceedings of the PM.S. (new series), vol. viii. pp. 141-3, 1886.
2 Vide the excellent description of Elisee Keclus, Universal Geography,
vol. ix. (South-west Asia), p. 94.
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 [631v] (1279/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213848.0x000050> [accessed 21 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