"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الجزء II. ج. ج. لوريمر. ١٩١٥" [‎٢‎٤‎٤‎٠] (١٢٦٢/٩٥٧)

2440
cruisers running between Bombay and the Egyptian port of Qusair
The " desert post •" from Basrah to Aleppo was abolished in 1838 •
but its place was taken in 1837 by a camel post between Bairut and
Muhammareh, via Damascus and Hit, of which the portion west of Hit
was under the management of British Consul General in Syria and the
rest under that of the British Political Agent in Turkish Iraq. The
result of Parliamentary Committees which sat in 1834 and 1837
was the final adoption of the Red Sea route. When Colonel Chesney,
after his survey of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, tried to induce the
Government of India to institute a fortnightly steamer service between
Bombay and Basrah and to reopen the desert route, his views were not
accepted; and in August 1837 the first monthly mail via Suez left
England for Bombay. The Government of Bombay, indeed, proposed
that the Red Sea and Persian Gulf routes should be used for official
correspondence in alternate months but the Court of Directors of the
East India Company ordered that the Gulf line should be employed
only for the carriage of duplicate despatches; full use of it for this
purpose was, however, to be made. The Red Sea route had a great
advantage over that by Basrah in that it was equally well adapted for
passenger and for mail traffic.
Communication between the Persian Gulf and India, 1833-1862.
Communica
tion in abey
ance for
some years
preoedicg
1S62.
Kesimptiou
of regular
and direct
oommunioa-
tion, 1862.
In 1839 interest in the Persian Gulf route was partially revived.
The Court of Directors of the East India Company sent three specially
constructed river steamers to Basrah for use on the Tigris^ and a letter
post was instituted by their means between Easrah and Baghdad. In
1843 or 1844 the camel post between Mesopotamia and Syria was re -
established^ but under altered conditions j for the point of departure
was now Baghdad and the terminus Bairut^ Damascus forming an
intermediate stage. The route thus opened, though it served the interests
of Turkish Iraq, no longer secured a share of the Indo-European traffic;
and the fact is instructive as illustrating the melancholy state into wbich
direct communication between India and the Persian Gulf had now
fallen. _ From this time onwards, until 1862, letters for India from
Baghdad, from Basrah and even from Bushehr usuallv took a circuitous
way by Damascus, Egypt and the Red Sea; and, what is more extra*
ordinary still, the correspondence thus sent from Bushehr appears to
nave been forwarded to Baghdad by land vU Tehran. Occasionally
« r j t j rrl a veBsd of tlle Indian Navy from the Gulf to Bombay
afforded an opportunity of more direct communication. British merchant
vessels were at this time rarely seen in the Persian Gulf.
• i rrh 1 e A eal :, 186 ^ S f^ a terin to tlie extraordinary state of inaccessibility
into which the Gulf bad fallen, and ushered in a new political and
commercial era *; it marked in fact the real commenceme nt of the modern