344 Curzon on the Bagdad Railway [ I 9 11 



went to his rooms in Mount Street, where we met a certain Fielding, 

 a mining engineer, whom he had made acquaintance with in Persia. 

 Beauclerk explained the position of the Russians with a map on the 

 Chinese frontier. The Russians have two strong military stations on 

 the frontier, the one at Tashkend, the other at Kiahta, threatening Kulja 

 and Urga respectively. The Russian colonists cannot in any way 

 compete with the Chinese, and it is difficult to see what they want with 

 extending their Empire in the Chinese direction, except that just over 

 the frontier towards Kulja there is a valuable coal mine, which they 

 covet. 



"21st March. — Browne came to luncheon and brought with him 

 Mirza Abdul Ghaffar, of the Persian Legation, an intelligent man, 

 with whom we discussed the Persian and other Eastern questions for 

 full three hours. 



" 22nd March. — To the House of Lords to hear the debate on Bag- 

 dad. It was a disappointing affair. Curzon made a long, dry, and 

 pompous exposition of the case, carefully avoiding, however, the point 

 of real interest, namely, his own intrigue with Mubarak Ibn Sbaa at 

 Koweit. He just mentioned that place, mispronouncing it Ko-ite (as 

 one might say 'go right') instead of Quate, but only to say that it 

 need not be discussed. His whole speech was a shirking of the real 

 matters in dispute, and Morley, who followed him, in reply, was only 

 too glad to leave it so. I never saw anything feebler or less imposing 

 than Morley showed himself on this occasion, unless it was the same 

 Morley twelve years ago dealing with Kitchener at Omdurman in the 

 House of Commons. He seemed ashamed of himself there in the 

 House of Lords, a little old senile vestryman fumbling with his papers, 

 ignorant of the whole case he had to state, timid in addressing his 

 brother peers, contradicting himself and saying the wrong thing, at 

 times quite inaudible. It seemed absurd that he and Curzon between 

 them had had the whole fortunes of the British Empire in the East in 

 their hands for the last dozen years, and that the Empire should have 

 survived it. The debate ended in the non sequitur of Curzon with- 

 drawing his demand for papers. 



" Beauclerk on Sunday repeated to me the account of Major Sykes 

 having fortified his house at Meshed. When Beauclerk stayed with 

 him there three years ago, Sykes had 200 Indian Sepoys as his Consular 

 guard, and he used to drill them daily to rifle practice. Also he had 

 dug a mine from his garden 100 yards long, passing under the street to 

 that of the Governor of the town, and had even undermined the Gov- 

 ernor's house. He learned this from Sykes himself. [A pleasant 

 instance of what diplomatists call ' peaceful penetration.'] 



" 24th March. — Bain, the author of the ' Digit of the Moon,' dined 

 with me. He is less interesting than his books, a typical Anglo-Indian 



