356 RAWLINSON ON MOHASi'RAH. [May 11, 1857. 



that a treaty would be concluded at Paris, or that the war would 

 speedily finish. Anticipating a sustained resistance on the part of 

 Persia, his object was to obtain a certain position, which would 

 enable him to carry on the war with vigour and effect hereafter ; 

 and for that object it was absolutely necessary that he should, in 

 the fii'st instance, secure a strategic base. Such a base then he 

 rightly judged to be only obtainable at Moham'rah, where the 

 obstacles which impeded operations at Bushir would no longer 

 require to be encountered. At Bushir, there were not only the 

 passes to contend with but there was also a deficiency of carriage, 

 and the latter difficulty appeared insuperable, for there were no 

 camels in that part of the country, and if mules were obtained in 

 sufficient quantities, they would require a corresponding amount of 

 forage, which the district about Bushir was quite inadequate to 

 supply. But at Moham'rah the General would be able to draw 

 camels to any extent from Turkish Arabia, for the whole country 

 teemed with them, and, moreover, in regard to the physical cha- 

 racter of the region, the army could ascend the country up to the 

 foot of the mountains without any difficulty whatever. He did not 

 know what Sir James Outram's ultimate intentions had been, but 

 that commander, he thought, probably saw that by obtaining com- 

 mand of the country up to Shuster, or to the base of the mountains, 

 he would really make a great impression upon Persia — such an im- 

 pression indeed as in all probability would bring the Persian govein- 

 ment to reason. If this expectation had not been realized — if the 

 Persians had still held out, whether Sir James Outram, in prosecu- 

 tion of the war, would have attempted to penetrate still further into 

 the interior, was a matter which there was fortunately no occasion 

 to investigate. His own idea was, that Sir James Outram would 

 have found it extremely difficult to advance beyond Shuster and 

 Dizfiil. But in Oriental countries experience had shown that we 

 might always safely count on the enemy succumbing to moral 

 pressure before there was any real necessity, and the result of the 

 Persian war afforded no exception to the rule. At the same time 

 it should be understood that it was not absolutely impossible to 

 enter Persia from Moham'rah. There were several caravan routes 

 leading to the interior of more or less difficulty. One route which 

 had been traversed by many Europeans, led from Khuzistan, by 

 Earn Hiirmuz and Bebahan, through the mountains to Shiraz. It 

 involved of course an enormous circuit, instead of passing direct 

 from Bushir to Shiraz, to go by sea in the first instance from 

 Bushir to Moham'rah, and then by land from Moham'rah to Shiraz. 

 But still the line in question had been considered as a possible 



