![Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎687v] (1391/1814)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000001491.0x00033b/Mss Eur F111_33_1407.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎687v] (1391/1814)")
Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [687v] (1391/1814)
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.
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PERSIA
from the neighbouring telegraph-station at Fao landed from a boat
at the fort, meeting with no interruption, and succeeded in making
drawings and plans of the fortifications. When this vagary was
discovered the Turks were furious, and have since fanatically
excluded every prying eye. But from the deck of each passing
steamer enough can be seen to show the actual progress of affairs,
and to reduce to their proper proportions the diplomatic denials from
Stambul. When I add that early in 1890 the Turks also com
menced to build two other forts in the immediate neighbourhood
of Mohammerah higher up the river; that the soldiers at Fao
fired without provocation upon the captain and boat’s crew of
a British man-of-war (an act for which an apology arrived just in
time from Constantinople); and that daily and weekly they place
every obstacle that a perverse ingenuity can suggest in the way of
the (English) Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company,
who own the right to ply with two vessels between Busrah and
Baghdad, it will be seen that to represent their action as dictated
by any other spirit than one of provocation both to Persia and this
country is difficult.
A little beyond the new fort is the joint British and Turkish
Telegraph station at Fao, where the cable of the Gulf section of
Telegraph Indo-European Telegraph Department comes up from
station gea5 an( } i s prolonged by an overland wire to Con
stantinople. Two buildings or sheds accommodate the respective
officials of the two nationalities, and recently provided a further illus
tration of the suspicious hostility of the Turks. For when the English
superintendent began to build a low wall round his shed to keep off
the encroachments of the river, the Sublime Porte, which is ready to
detect a menace in any proceedings but its own, formally protested
against the fortification on its territory of a hostile place of arms!
About sixty miles above the bar outside the Shat-el-Arab, forty
miles above the entrance to that estuary at Fao, and twenty miles
Haffar below the Turkish port of Busrah, the present main exit
channel 0 f t p e Karun river flows into the Shat-el-Arab from the
north-east by an artificial channel, whose etymology testifies to its
origin, known as the Haffar Canal . 1 When this canal was cut no
one knows, and I shall not attempt to conjecture . 2 The reason for
1 Haffar signifies ‘dug.’
2 Mr. Watson, in his History of Persia, p. 445, says it was cut by Alexander
the Great, in order to avoid the necessity of sailing down the Karun into the
Persian Gulf
The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.
. But I know of no ground for this hypothesis.
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 [687v] (1391/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213848.0x0000c0> [accessed 4 April 2025]
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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