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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [813v] (1643/1814)
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.
498
PERSIA
miserated is the European traveller or resident who, when either
passing through or sojourning in that land, is guilty of indifference
to the exquisite solace of the Persian water-pipe, or Italian.
Tobacco ^ • •
Though I am no smoker, and derive little pleasure from
the European modes of enjoying the weed, yet I never failed
to succumb to the subtle influence of the Shiraz tumhaku, a few
perfumed inhalations of which are sufficient to fill the remotest
cells of the brain with an Olympian contentment. This superb
tobacco, whose agreeable qualities are in part due to the quantity of
nicotine which it contains, in part to the manner in which it is
prepared, being soaked, squeezed dry, and then placed at the top
of the pipe under lighted charcoal, whence its fumes are drawn
through water to the smoker’s lips, is grown chiefly in the districts
of Shiraz, Kashan, and Tabbas, slightly inferior qualities being
produced at Isfahan, Kum, Nihavend, Veramin, Semnan and
Shahrud. On the ground it is purchased according to its quality
at from 1-3 hrans per batman (64- lbs.), a price which, owing to the
action of middlemen, is swollen by the time it reaches the city
bazaars to 3—12 Itrans. The amount annually consumed in Persia
alone has been estimated by M. Kitabji, Director-General of Per
sian Customs, as 18,000,000 batmans, or 52,230 tons. 1 Scarcely
less popular is the Persian leaf in the neighbouring countries of
the East, and an export, estimated at 1,500,000 batmans, or 4,350
tons, is conducted- to Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Arabia, India, and
Afghanistan. A second and different variety “of tobacco, similar
to that produced in Turkey, and used for smoking in pipes and
cigarettes, is grown in Kurdistan, near Urumiah, and on the
Caspian littoral, and, if developed, might prove a formidable rival
to the Ottoman product. I have elsewhere mentioned that in the
autumn of 1890 a concession was granted by the Shah for a
tobacco regie in Persia, i.e. a complete monopoly of the purchase,
sale, and manufacture of native-grown tobacco for a period of fifty
years, and that a company entitled the Imperial Tobacco Corpora
tion of Persia, with a capital of 650,000/., was formed to work
1 I cannot help regarding this as a most unscientific calculation; for it is
simply based on the hypothesis that, given 10,000,000 as the total population of
1 ersia (in my judgment an exaggerated estimate), one person in every five, without
regard to sex or age, smokes 9 batmans, or 58| lbs. per annum. The figures sup
plied to me represent the total production as only one half. For an account
of the methods adopted m growth and preparation, vide a paper in the Kew Bul
letin, April 1891.
a
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 [813v] (1643/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213850.0x00002c> [accessed 6 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