Page 358 - PERSIAN 5 1905_1911

58 ADMINISTRATION RETORT OF THE PERSIAN GULF POLITICAL RESIDENCY
Towards the end of the year messages were sent straight through from
London to Karachi and even to Calcutta and direct working is to be insti­
tuted shortly which will mako Tehran simply a transmitting station and
so set free a considerable number of signallers some of whom I hope will
come here and make things easier for the men here with whom it now appears
to be a ease of all work and no play.
Honda.
As already mentioned no road has been safe from robbers. On the
Meshed road they were strong and bold enough to hold up a caravan of 40
Afghans who put up a fight and lost four men killed. No caravan has got
through from Yezd without being attacked and no caravan has made any
attempt to go from here to Yezd for months. The Bunder Abbas road is
the least unsafe as no band of robbers can settle on it conveniently or make
much out of it. Almost the only goods coming up on it arc brought up by the
Afsharis on donkeys, and 30 or 40 of them, well-armed, come up together, each
owning a few donkeys, so forming a party which nothing but a big band could
tackle and no big band of robbers could find provisions or hold together for
more than a day or two. The few camel caravans which come through come
in sufficient force to be safe from the small bands of 3 and 4 robbers who make
the road unsafe for ordinary travellers unaccompanied by armed escorts.
Bilik.
The Imperial Bank of Persia has of course been affected by the stagna­
tion of trade brought about by the general insecurity of the country and has
found business not very brisk. Mr. Simpson went on leave in July and
Mr. Wright from Ispahan took over the management from him. The Bank’s
new quarters are not yet completed but will it is hoped be ready for occu­
pation by next Naoroz.
Mission. Mr. Rice, Secretary of the Ispahan Committee of the Church Missionary
Society, came to Kerman in April and in spite of the Bishop’s orders forced
through the transfer of Mr. Liddell to Yezd and replaced him by Mr. Scorer,
who had come from Yezd to marry Miss Adamson, one of the nurses of the
Society. He however professed himself unable even to represent the advis­
ability of transferring Dr. Dodson to Yezd and bringing the Yezd doctor
here and left me to write to the Bishop in Ispahan. The Ispahan committee
apparently have no authority over the doctors who are governed more or less
by a central medical committee in London. This committee was faced by the
objection of Dr. White to having his hospital in Yezd upset by Dr. Dodson,
and presumably finding a like objection to his exchange with any other
doctor in charge of a hospital decided to close the Kerman hospital and to
send Dr. Dodson to Ispahan to go through the course of training under the
doctor there which he ought to have gone through before he was given
independent charge of a hospital. The matter took so long to arrange that
the political situation here had completely changed before the London com-
mittec had arrived at any conclusion, and Dr. Dodson had at last been
persuaded that my representations had got to be listened to and had left
off performing operations recklessly so that by the time the decision of the
committee was communicated to me I was able to inform them that Dr.
Dodson’s removal was no longer necessary, while a considerable European
community had gradually been formed here relying solely on the Mission
doctor for medical aid so that it was a serious matter to suddenly withdraw
this without warning. My representations together with those of the native
community, whom the Mission had educated to appreciate European medicine
and surgery within reason, have only been able to delay the closing of the
hospital, the fact being, I am told, that funds are scarce and that the Kerman
Medical Mission, which at first paid a large proportion of its expenses from
fees and contributions collected locally, has lately practically ceased to assist
in its own support. The Committee have at any rate refused to reconsider
their decision and the hospital will be closed early in 1909.
The very scanty rains of last year made the crops lighter than they
Weatbcr and
rropi. might have been, especially as to the yield of straw, and consequently the
prices of wheat and barley have been high, and that of kali}pr chopped straw,
inordinately so. A sharp bout of cold late in the spring nipped all the lrui
trees and there was consequently practically no fruit this year. Khabis a