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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [684r] (1384/1814)
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 KARUN RIVER
333
time a report to the Home Government, and a letter to the
Chamber of Commerce at Bombay, urging the prompt utilisation
of so favourable an opportunity. Political convulsions in Persia
frustrated the further prosecution of the design, and it was not till
thirty years later that the opening of the Karun river to foreign
commerce appears to have been made the subject of formal official
communications between the Governments of Downing Street and
Teheran. In 1878 Husein Kuli Khan, the second redoubtable
Ilkhani
The paramount chief of certain tribes in south west Iran.
whom the Bakhtiari clans have produced in this century,
made offers of co-operation to Mr. G. Mackenzie, member of the
large trading firm of Gray, Paul & Co. at Bushire, not less cordial
than those which his famous predecessor had made to Layard ; and
the firm above mentioned volunteered to place steamers upon the
river. The independent action, however, and conspicuous authority
of these chieftains in each case excited the jealousy of the Central
Government. The permission was refused ; Bayard’s friend died in
imprisonment at Teheran ; Mackenzie’s friend was put to death
at Isfahan by the Zil-es-Sultan. At length, after seventeen years
of diplomatic fencing, with feint and counterfeint, and all the
diversified tricks of the Oriental school—in the course of which
France at one time appeared as a combatant in the arena, and all but
carried off an exclusive concession for the navigation of the river
and the development of the surrounding lands 1 —the matter was,
through the successful instrumentality of Sir H. Drummond Wolff,
settled by a decree of the Shah, issued in October 1888, by which
the Karun river as far as Ahwaz was, subject to certain somewhat
vexatious conditions, opened to the mercantile marine of the world.
The leave, such as it was, having been obtained, Messrs. Lynch
Brothers, of the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company,
Enterprise W ^ 0 ^ iave ^ or man y y^ars owned the English steamers
of Messrs, navigating the Tigris, detached one of their boats for
the Karun service, and have continued to run a boat at
intervals of a fortnight from Mohammerah to Ahwaz ever since.
1 This concession, twice granted and twice cancelled between 1876 and 1878,
was obtained by the influence of Dr Tholozan, the French physician of the Shah,
strongly supported by Russian influence at Teheran. It was proposed to rebuild
the dam at Ahwaz, with locks (the French having the exclusive right of naviga
tion), to irrigate the surrounding country, and even to work mines and forests. A
French engineer was sent out to report upon the Ahwaz rapids, and, in connection
with the projected enterprise, a line of French steamers was established between
Marseilles and Busrah, and a French official was placed at Mohammerah.
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 [684r] (1384/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213848.0x0000b9> [accessed 26 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