"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٤‎٠‎٦] (١٢٦٢/٩٢٣)

2406
the local rank of Major^ and his headquarters were fixed at Tehran,
where he arrived on the 20th of October 1863. On the 17th of Novem
ber he reached Bushehr to meet a construction party sent from England;
and shortly afterwards work was commenced in five sections, two of
which lay between Tehran and Khanaqin and three between Tehran and
Bushehr. Extraordinary difficulties, due to the apathy and in some
places to the opposition of the local Persian authorities, were experienced
in obtaining labour and local materials; and Major Champain was
driven to take the extreme step of authorising* his principal snbordinatee
to make payments out of their own funds for necessary labour and stores
in supplying which the Persian officials had made default. But the
ardour and determination of the British constructors were such as to
surmount all obstacles, and on the 26th of September 1864 the whole
line stood completed between Bushehr and Khanaqm It was not
however opened for traffic until April 1865.
The troubles, however, with which the new telegraph had to
contend, were as yet by no means at an end.
In particular the junction of the Persian and Turkish systems in
the neighbourhood of Khanaqin was attended by serious embarrassment.
From the first the Ottoman Government had regarded with no friendly
eye the participation of Persia in the great Indo-European telegraph
undertaking and its advantages; but to outward seeming the Turkish
objections had been overcome when the Anglo-Turkish engagement of
October 1863 was signed, providing for the construction of the
Baghdad-Khanaqin line and for the distribution of through traffic
between it and the Baghdad-Basrah line. Persia too, as we have seen,
inclined to a scheme for separate communication with Europe ty
way of Russia; but, in adhering to the engagement of February 1*^;
she had apparently abandoned her opposition to the rival project. Botn
powers, moreover, by means of a Turko-Persian treaty dated the 28th
of November 1863, had agreed to the execution of the Khanaqin schema
with or without modification, and had amicably regulated a number
of the details connected with it. When however the junction a
Khanaqin became an all but accomplished fact, both states, and specially
Persia, evinced a disposition to withdraw from their engagements; an
the difficulty was accentuated by a dispute which arose as to i e
ownership of the country, and consequently as to the control oi ^ 0
telegraph line, between Khanaqin in Turkish ; Iraq and Qal'eh-^fea z
in Persia. Discussions between JVlirza Husain Khan, Persian Envoy
Extraordinary to the Porte, who happened to be passing throng
Baghdad, and Namiq Pasha, Wali of Baghdad, resulted in a
settlement of the question, and a junction was effected in October i ^
at the point agreed on between these two authorities; shortly a^
wards, however, the Governor of Kirmanshah, under .orders
Tehran, again destroyed communication by causing the line to e
at che point of junction. At length Colonel Kemball, ^the
Resident at Baghdad, suggested a happy solution of the . ron ■ j
difficulty; it consisted in the use, within the limits of the ^
tract, of alternate iron and wooden poles, the former of the pa
employed in Turkish 'Iraq and the latter of the type identified ^