1915] on Mesopotamia and Euphrates Valley 487 



the administration by a distinct service of officials from that of India 

 may be advisable. Now, in view of, as we all hope, .an early ter- 

 mination of the war, and the takino^ over of this connfcry with so 

 vast a scope for development, let ns consider what particnlarly are 

 tlie main and most urgent engineering problems to be dealt with. 

 Our special interests in Persia and Mesopotamia require that the 

 approaches by sea should always be kept open. Much, therefore, 

 should be done in the way of improving the lighting and the navi- 

 gation of the Persian Gulf, a most dangerous sea, particularly at its 

 south-eastern end, where it is full of small islands only a little above 

 the w^ater-level, and sunken rocks, in many cases, only a few feet 

 below the water-level. AVhen I made my voyage from Bombay via 

 Muscat to Mohammerah, I was surprised that in a sea over which, as I 

 understood, our country was supposed to exercise control, I should 

 not have seen a lighthouse between Muscat and the head of the 

 Gulf. At the head of the Gulf, leaving Koweit on the west and 

 entering the Shat-el-Arab, we were impeded by a great sand-bar at 

 the entrance to that river. The Uttle steamer of the British India 

 Steam Xavigation Company in which we travelled, drawing only 

 some sixteen to eighteen feet, so far as I remember, could not cross 

 this sand-bar all afloat, but having made one attempt had to go 

 astern and practically ram its way through the sand for probably two 

 or three feet in depth. Large steamers very often have to lay 

 exposed outside the bar to tmnsfer their cargoes to small craft for 

 delivery at Busra. It appears to me that one of the first problems 

 to be dealt with is the removal of this obstruction to the navigation 

 of vessels of even moderate size. Some engineers have proposed to 

 rely upon a dredging away of this bar, but I am inchned to think 

 that this, without a proper system of training walls to somewhat 

 curtail the width of the stream and increase its scour, would not be 

 altogether satisfactory. As an alternative, many are of opinion that 

 the better plan would be to carry a railway to Koweit, and make 

 there a new harbour with much easier i^assage to deep water than 

 over the bar at the mouth of the Shat-el-Arab, and in this opinion I 

 agree. The river between Fao, at the entrance to the Shat-el-Arab, 

 and Gorna, at the junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris, could 

 easily be made a good ch-mnel. At the old city of Mohammerah, 

 the headquarters of the great Sheik of Mohammerah, strikes off the 

 River Karun, with a more or less good channel for river boats of 

 not more than three feet draft, up to Ahwaz, an old Persian town 

 from whence start the main caravan routes into Persia. Here most 

 of the trade is in British hands, and it is upon this river that the 

 largely increasing business of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company has to 

 rely for water transport. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company is a purely 

 British organization in which last year, in view of the great supplies 

 of oil necessary for the purposes of the Navy, the British Govern- 

 ment acquired an interest to the extent of about two million sterling. 



