340 TEE NEAR EAST. 



commercial and political interests in Persia are prac- 

 tically indissociable, the political element in the Nushki 

 route is the preponderating one. That this is the 

 view taken by the Indian Government is demonstrated 

 incidentally by the fact that, contrary to the essen- 

 tially technical advice of telegraphist experts who 

 inclined to the alignment Quetta-Ladis in preference 

 to that of Quetta-Kobat for the new line of telegraph, 

 the latter was the one eventually selected, in spite of 

 its greater distance and greater estimated cost both 

 in capital sunk and in future annual expenditure.-^ 

 This line was completed from Quetta to Robat on 

 the Persian frontier, and an office opened there early 

 in the present year. 



The Russian press were likewise not slow to see the 

 political importance of the enterprise ; and the announce- 

 ment that the Secretary of State for India had given 

 his sanction to the construction of a line from Quetta 

 to Nushki in the autumn of 1902 was greeted with 

 a chorus of hysterical denunciation from the Russian 

 organs.^ The Government was urged to take steps 



1 The distance from Quetta to Ladis was given as 430 miles, and from 

 Quetta to Robat as 478 miles ; while the estimated capital cost of line and 

 offices for the former was Rs. 9,79,000, and for the latter Rs. 11,30,500 ; and 

 the estimated annual maintenance charges for the former Rs. 34,000, and 

 for the latter Rs. 35,500. 



^ The construction of the Quetta-Nushki railway of 82^ miles in length 

 was sanctioned in August 1902 at an estimated cost of about Rs. 70,00,000, 

 or Rs. 85,000 per mile. Leaving the existing Bolan railway at a point 12 

 miles from Quetta and 3 miles from Spezand, the line will encounter three 

 mountain barriers — the Chiltan, the Mashelak, and the southern tail of the 

 Khwaja Amram, — crossing the intervening plains of Mastung and Shahrud. 

 The steepest grades are 1 in 50, compensated for curvature, and the sharpest 

 curve will have a 573-foot radius. Sanction was received from the Secretary 

 of State for at once putting in hand the Nishpa tunnel, 2600 feet long, 5 

 miles from the point of departure, and the heavy works in the Sheik 

 Wasil Gorge, between miles 27 and 32, at an expenditure of Rs. 4,75,000. 

 The Nishpa tunnel is now finished, and the laying of the line is being taken 

 in hand. 



