Page 349 - Gulf Precis (VII)_Neat

SECRET.

PRECIS

OP
MEKRAN AFFAIRS.

CHAPTER I.

Our early connection with Mcluan.
(i) Jask, our port of trade with Persia from 1015 to 1022.
The Mckran coast was the earliest field of British enterprise in Persia. It
was at Jask, then u only a fisher town,” that the pioneers of the British trade
with Persia landed, and from there commenced their arduous march to Ispahan.
Jask was the port for the export and import trade in Persia that was carried
on by the East India Company’s merchants until Gombroon was opened to them
on the fall of the Portuguese power in the gulf after the capture of Ormuz in
1622. Fora description of Jask and the coast from there to Minab, and of
enterprises of the English in that region, attention is invited to the first and
second parts of the Summary attached to the Selections from the State Papers I
(1600—1880).

(ti) Captain Grant’s mission to Mekran, 1809.
2. After the British had established a factory at Gombroon, Jask and the
Mekran coast was abandoned altogether and was not thought of for nearly
two centuries. It was only at the commencement of the nineteenth century,
that the scare of a French invasion opened our eyes to the possibilities of the
Mekran coast offering an easy way to an army marching from Persia to India.
Captain Grant, who was in command of the escort of Brigadier-Goncral
Malcolm, was sent to the Mekran coast. The object of this mission is described
in the following extract of his letter to
Bombay, Volume 80 of 1804 (Persia). Sir H. Worsoloy on his return from his
journey through Mekran:—
“ The object of my late mission was to ascertain whether an European army could
penetrate into India by the southern coast of Persia j for which purpose I landed at Choubar,
and finished my journey at Gombroon.
u From this judgment I could form, I conceive, the design perfectly practicable; the
great obstacle that was supposed to exist was the scarcity of water, but I found such idea
was erroneous.
" I travelled in my European dross, and found the inhabitants more civil and hospitable
than they had been represented. I made the purchase of a few horses, the ostensible object of
my journey.”
3. The journal of his route contains valuable information about tho state
Printod in Bombay Volumo so of 1864, with a of the country, its towns, tribes and chiefs,
map. and is therefore printed below in extenso.

Journal of a route through the western parts of Mekran by Captain N. P. Grant.
Journal.
Having received instructions from Brijadier-General Malcolm to examine the western
countries of • Mekran, I embarked on board tho Honourable Company’s Cruiser “ Ternat.c”
and 6ailod on the 18th of January 1809 from Bombay.
4028 F. D.