Page 111 - Gulf Precis (VII)_Neat

95
CHAPTER XII.

Restoration of Anciont Elam: Projected Irrigation Works in Arabi­
stan, 1903-04.

314*. Ono of tlio dreams of modern times has boon to restore the Garden
of Western Asia, which Arabistan was in anciont times. Wo have read* about
Mr. Diculafoy’s and Dr. Tholozan’s schomcs, which wore in tlio air in the early
eighties of the last century. They died the death, which is the fate of most
schemes started for tho good of Persia. Recently Monsieur Roggon, a Dutch
Engineer, has been surveying Arabistan and preparing schemes of irrigation,
which seem to havo fired tho imagination of tho Shah and caught his
enthusiasm in no small dogreo. What is tho exact nature and extent of tho
irrigation schemes cannot be judged from our rocorda. But roughly they
comprise (1) tho reconstruction of tho dam at Ahwaz, (2) the restoration
of some of tho old canals.
315. As regards tho feasibility of the schemes, there is little doubt, and
from Lieutenant Lorimcr'.s report (No. 25,f dated 2nd July 1904) and Major
Burton’s Memorandum on tho rivers of Arabistan, it appears that tho whole of
Arabistan is irrigable from Karun and other rivers, under a proper system of
irrigation. We shall quote the following passage from Major Burton’s Memo­
randum :—
“To instanco the facility with which these rivers will lend themselves to a scheme of
irrigation, cinbraoing tho whole country from tho Karkhah to tho Hindian, it may bo noted
that by an inundation tho Karkhah has been kuown to unite with tho Shoour River, and
flo.v into tho Ab-i-Diz; and that the water of tho Karun can be forced by a spring tide into
the marsh which receives the surplus of the Jerrahi, west of Fellahieh.
The whole of tho lcvol plains from Hawizoh to the Hindian stream m3y bo allowed to
have been formed within historical times.
Assuming that tho land advances at the mouth of the Shat-ol-Arab throo miles in one
hundred years, and allowing a losser rate of growth for tho deltas of the smaller rivers to the
east of the Karun at the period of the voyago of Ncarchus, tho northern shore of the marshes
and tidal flats into whicli tho six rivers from tho Euphrates to the Hindian then flowed
would have stretched from the vioinity of Basrah to 40 miles south of Ahwaz, and thence
south-east to tho south ot Behbahau. The whole of that region is of equal elevatiou, and tho
water of tho various rivers could be carried in canals to all the intermediate lands.”
316. Then comes tbo question as to the cost of the schemes and the
means of meeting the cost- It appears from a Dospatch of Sir A. Hardinge
to Lord Lansdowne, dated 20th Juno 1904, that Mon. Roggen estimates the
cost of reconstructing tho Ahwaz Dam and of the necessary preliminary irriga­
tion works at £400,000 and proposes three alternative schomos—(1) that tho work
should bo undertaken by tho Persian Government, or (2) by a Persian, or (8)—
and this is the plan which he himself naturally favours—by a foreign interna­
tional Company to bo floated in Holland. The Companies holding the conces­
sion, or the Government if it undertook the task, would recoup themselves by
renting to tho Arab cultivators the lands which would bo fertilised by the irri­
gation works, and which he is convinced would in a fow years yield so splendid
a crop as to become tho granary for tho whole of tho Persian Gulf, and perhaps
also for other and more distaut rogions.
318. The Shah, so M. Naus informed Sir A. Hardinge, was greatly attracted
by the idea, but was strongly opposed to giving any concession in connection
with it to foreigners of whatever nationality. He expressed himself, however, as
willing to order the work to be completed in a period extending over ten years
by the Persian Government (which would assign a yearly sum of £40,000 for the
purpose), and even to devote to it his own personal revenues as distinct from
those of the State.
319. As to how the Shall proposed lo find the money, it was hoped that,
now that the deficit had been filled up under the more cconomio regime of
the Ain-cd-Dowleh, it might not bo boyond that Minister’s ability to find a
• Seo Chapter ll(iii).
f Sco paragraph* 32'J—329-D. belorr.
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