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Quitting Persia for the opposite shore, Koweit to the north-west may be considered
preferable to Know for landing the telegraph cable : it is doubtful if your telegraph clerks
could survive at Faow, or at any other point in the Delta, through a long unhealthy season.
It is also, 1 hear, doubtful if the cable could be stretched over the breadth of soft mud
belting the Delta sea line. Koweit is healthy, easily approached, and on the direct road
for Kornah, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Koweit is, perhaps, the natural terminus for your sea-going steamers : as compared
with Busrch it would save 70 miles of river navigation, and a long shallow entrance chan­
nel, and a bar. Busrch is very unhealthy moreover. Koweit is greatly more convenient
for colliers and a coal dcp6t. A boat canal might readily connect Koweit and kornah,
or any other point cn the Shaat-ul-Arab. The canal cutting would itself tend to regene­
rate the once fruitful soil along its banks.
Koweit was the entrepot of the commerce of the east and west from the most ancient
times of which we have record: it may be
,hat mo,t!ern ci(rcrs,ances ar,e d,ffi'rcnt:
x:'\zus? but if you will carefully examine the question,
Media.
you may be struck with the fact that, taking the
trade of the east and west in its large sense, from China to Western Europe, and explor­
ing its ramifications during a succession of centuries between those meridians, there is a
marked tendency in trade to retrace its old lines under improved means of transit.
Is it possible so to arrange as that your .line of trade, telegraph, and coal depots and
political residencies along the entire Gulf line may be coincident, and so preclude neces­
sity for change as the line becomes thoroughly developed ? Perhaps this might be accom­
plished by selecting Cassab. A1 Mussundoom, as your point of entrance. The square-
rigged ocean trade should then concentre there at a free port. Goods could be distributed
round the Gulf in native craft or small steamers, tug or otherwise. Koweit would be the
spot where the trade would take to river boats or caravans ; and where your last Sea Coal
Depot and your first land Telegraph Station would be established.
In providing for this line and reconsidering our position in the Persian Gulf, we might
not be content with contemplating the present condition of affairs alone ; we might throw a
forward glance over fifteen years or so, and reflect whether, during that period, the Turkish
question must not pass through a crisis affecting our eastern interests ; whether, during
that period, the reforms going on in Russia may not give to that free nation an impetus of
expansion eastward, more rapid, more permanent, and more powerful, than any that we
have yet had to apprehend from the arms of Russian serfs ; whether countries, like Italy,
now awakening to fresh industrial life, may not within that time claim to partake with us
of Asiatic sources of wealth ; whether the molecular movements perceptible everywhere,
in Southern Central Asia itself, may not give those countries an unprecedented importance
for evil or for good ; whether it is possible, lastly, that'Persia, now padded by Turkey, can
be laid bare to the probe of European civilization, in her western side, and remain what
she now is ? Are all these shadows, or are they giants coming in the distance, whom we
must be prepared to meet?
Be they what they may, as discerned from the political horizon, their arrival could
scarcely be otherwise than beneficial to the trade, and, let us hope, to the people of
Southern Central Asia; and it is from this trade point of view alone that I presume to cast
a passing glance into a future, which Government must foresee from a far higher induction
of causes than I can pretend to be informed of.
Abstract statement of the estimated Exports and Imports at Bushire.

Exports. Rupees. Imports. Rupees.

To Bombay, about ten lakhs ... 10,00.000 From Bomhay, thirty-seven lakhs 37,00,000
To Jawa, about three and half lakhs... 3.5°.000 From Java, ten lakhs 10,00,000
To Jedda, about one lakh and eighty x,80,000 From Jedda, Nil ...
thousand.

Total approximate Export about 15,30,000 Total approximate Imports about 47,00,000
fifteen lakhs and thirty thousand forty-seven lakhs Rupees.
Rupees.

(Sd.) Lewis Pelly, Lieut.^Colonel,
Acting Political Resident,
C645FD