334 THE NEAR EAST. 



source, and the Russian loan of £2,500,000 of 1900, 

 the harbinger of more to follow, became an accom- 

 plished fact. Nor was this all. Persian Cossacks 

 under Russian officers formed the nucleus, and indeed 

 the only serviceable asset, of the Persian army ; 

 Russian doctors accompanied by Russian Cossacks were 

 parading ostentatiously through Eastern Persia — dan- 

 ger of plague from India was the excuse ; Russian 

 bounties were pushing Russian trade from one end of 

 the country to the other ; and the Russian Banque 

 des Prets, since rechristened the Banque d'Escompte, 

 an agency of the Russian Minister of Finance, with a 

 strong and significant resemblance to the Russo- Chinese 

 Bank in another sphere, was entering upon that policy 

 of cut-throat competition with the Imperial Bank of 

 Persia — the one British institution of importance sur- 

 viving in the country — which is being pursued with 

 relentless persistency to the present day. Moreover, 

 the so-called secret convention of 1890, which gave to 

 Russia the control of railway construction for a period 

 of ten years, had been further renewed, so as to hold 

 good until 1905 or, as the Persians themselves aver, 

 until 1910. British prestige was indeed at a discount. 

 There are signs, however, that the tide has turned. 

 The game that is being played is an uphill one, it is 

 true. Many of the factors above enumerated, which 

 have undermined British influence, are still there, and 

 others, such as the commercial treaty of 1902, of which 

 I have already written in an earlier chapter, have been 

 added ; but some things have been said — definitely and 

 officially — and, what is still more important, some few 

 things have been done, which have not been without 

 their efiect both upon the Persians themselves and upon 

 their neighbours on the north, and it was impossible 

 when travelling in the country in 1903 to be insensible 



