112 BAGHDAD TO KERMANSHAH. 



only weapon handy was a blunt butcher's knife, the 

 executioner was intoxicated, and the ghastly terror of 

 that final scene beyond belief. Let me not dwell upon 

 the revolting details. Suffice it that the monument is 

 there — a timely warning to all would-be malefactors. 



Within a dozen miles of Kasr-i-Shirin an experi- 

 mental shaft was being sunk in search of oil. When 

 one thinks of the forest of derricks and feverish activity 

 of Baku, the single shed and engine here seems a small 

 affair. Nevertheless, it may be the beginning of an 

 important business. That oil exists in many parts of 

 Southern Persia is well known, and it is a matter for 

 congratulation that a concession of such vast possibilities 

 has fallen into British hands. The concession obtained 

 from the Shah by Mr Darcy is for sixty years, dating 

 from 1902, and includes the whole of the south of 

 Persia. I rode out one morning, — passing on the way 

 the village of Azziz Khan, a monster of iniquity who 

 had lately shot his own nephew under circumstances 

 of the greatest treachery, and farther on a group of 

 villages, all in process of reconstruction after being 

 burnt in a recent inter-tribal engagement, — and spent 

 a day at the hospitable camp of the engineer in charge. 

 Oil had not then been struck, — the borer reached a 

 depth of 800 feet the morning I was there, — though all 

 the indications of its presence were observed.^ Galatian 

 mechanics were at the head of gangs of Persian drillers 

 from Baku, while the natives were being made use of as 

 far as their incapacity for skilled labour would allow, in 

 order to comply with the provision of the concession 

 which demands the employment of Persian subjects. 



1 Early in the present year (1904) one of the borings began to spout, 

 and oil was sent to England as a sample. The presence of oil in satisfac- 

 tory quantity having thus been proved, exploration was embarked upon 

 farther south, and additional progress may no doubt shortly be looked for. 



