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THE
EUPHRATES WALLEY RAILWAY.
BY
WILLIAM FRANCIS AINSWORTH,
M.A., Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., &c.
[Reprinted from COLBURN'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]
TIONDON :
ADAMS AND FRANCIS, 59, FLEET STREET, E.C.,
AND
ROBERT JOHN BUSH, 32, CHARING CROSS, S.W.
1872.
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TO
W. P. ANDREW, ESQ.
SIR,
As an old member of the Euphrates Expedition,
I have endeavoured to discuss in a fair and impartial
spirit the bearing of the evidence laid before the Select
Committee of the House of Commons last session upon
the Euphrates Valley Railway. It is especially gratify-
ing to see, that so far as it has gone, the great prepon-
derance of evidence given before the Committee, has
been in favour of the views you have so long and so
persistently advocated. And in testimony of the ad-
miration I entertain for the unflagging energy and
unwearied assiduity you have displayed, for a long
series of years, in advocating the importance of Railway
communication with India, as essential to the main-
tenance of the power and stability of the British
Empire in the East, I beg that you will accept the
dedication of the following pages.
THE AUTHOR.
LONDON, March 12th, 1872.
THE
EUPHRATES WALLEY RAILWAY.”
THERE it flows—one of the great rivers of the
world—hourly, daily, monthly pouring its deep waters
along what was once the most fertile and populous
centre of the human race, every inch of which is
capable of being reclaimed—to wash the walls of a few
sleeping towns and villages, to benefit half-civilised
Arabs with their camels, buffaloes, and sheep, or to
irrigate long lines of date-trees—and nothing is made
of it.
Thirty-six years ago an expedition was sent out by
an enlightened monarch and a liberal government—
liberal in its true sense—to survey this great stream,
for the purpose of opening a short, easy, and accessible
route to India. The work was performed, the maps
and sections are there, but nothing has as yet come
of it. A company was formed under the auspices of
* Report from the Select Committee on Euphrates Valley Railway; toge-
ther with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix,
and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed July 27, 1871.
6
Mr. W. P. Andrew, a gentleman deeply interested in
opening railway communication with, and in, India,
but government, whilst subsidising or guaranteeing
Indian railways and steam-boat communication, declined
to do the same in aid of the link which is necessary to
establish the connexion of the two countries. It is not
surprising that, although no one has been able to
bring any serious or irrefutable arguments against the
Euphrates Valley route, or as yet to suggest a better
or a more natural one, although general opinion has
been in its favour, and it is perfectly known to all
conversant with the subject that such a line would not
only facilitate communication with our Indian pos-
sessions, and thereby give a vast impetus to commerce
with the East generally, but that it would also, whilst
strengthening our tenure, be in reality the foundation
of a new empire, still capitalists and investors should
decline to undertake that which from its magnitude
(unless, as has been suggested by some, it was carried
out by segments at a time), must necessarily occupy
some years in its completion, and in the interval afford
no interest for the money invested, or traffic returns
could be made available as dividends.
Happily, however, government has, after this long
lapse of time, been once more aroused to a sense of the
great importance of the Euphrates Valley Railway to
the commerce of this country and the security of our
empire; and a committee of the House of Commons
has been sitting to take evidence upon the subject, and
will, it is to be hoped, prolong its labours this session,
upon a motion to that effect originally made by Sir
7
George S. Jenkinson. It would appear that the honour-
able member's attention was first called to the subject
by his excellency the Turkish ambassador, Musurus
Pasha. Sir George Jenkinson discussed the matter
with the Turkish ambassador, and came to the conclu-
sion that the work would be most easily carried out by
a joint guarantee on the part of the British and
Turkish governments. He also sought for information
from documents and persons acquainted with the sub-
ject, such as General Chesney and others, who have
devoted much time and attention to the inquiry, and
the general conclusion he arrived at was, as stated in
his own words before the committee, that the Euphrates
Valley route is the shortest route, the most direct
route, and the most feasible, and, therefore, the cheapest;
and it is, moreover, the only route which could ever be
assisted, in any material degree, by either this country
or the Turkish government. Therefore, looking at it
altogether, he thought that practically it is the only
line which is attainable at present. -
The first public meeting of the select committee was
held on the 17th of July, when Sir Henry Rawlinson
and General Chesney were severally examined. The
first-mentioned gentleman, so well-known for his inti-
mate acquaintance with Oriental geography and litera-
ture, gave his evidence mainly in connexion with the
Various routes that have been suggested or proposed
between the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the
Persian Gulf. The first of these proposed routes, and
for which a concession was offered by the Turkish
government so long ago as 1866 or 1867, was to con-
8
nect Constantinople with the Persian Gulf, starting from
Scutari, and passing by Ismid (Nicomedia), Kutaiyah,
Kara-hissar, Kunieh,or Koniyeh (Iconium), and Kaisérieh,
or Kaisariyeh (Caesareia), to Aleppo, and then down
the valley of the Euphrates to Baghdad and Bussorah,
and from Bussorah to the Persian Gulf. The distance
was estimated at seventeen hundred miles, including a
branch from Aleppo to Alexandretta. The difficulties
presented by the very peculiar physical aspect of Asia
Minor, in the early portion of this proposed line, were
discussed in reference to analogous suggestions made
previous to the one here alluded to, by Mr. Campbell,
Mr. Wright (“Christianity and Commerce, the Natural
Results of the Geograpical Progression of Railways,”
1849), Dr. Thompson, and Sir R. M. Stephenson, in a
pamphlet published in 1856 by Stanford of Charing
Cross, entitled, “The Euphrates Valley Route to India,
by a Traveller.” These difficulties are not insuperable.
Nothing, indeed, can be positively stated as insuperable
to modern science, backed by a sufficiency of time and
capital. But it is essential in such discussions to keep
in view whether the amount of time and capital neces-
sary to carry out any particular scheme would not put
all question of a possible remuneration out of the field.
Any person minutely acquainted with the great central
plateau of Asia Minor and its various outlets, whether
to the south, through the Taurus, or down to the shores
of the Black Sea or the Mediterranean, must be con-
vinced that the approach to that central plateau from
Constantinople, which is most feasible and most likely to
be remunerative, would be by the high road to the pass
9
of Hajji Hamsah on the Halys, and up the open valley
of that river to Sivas or Sebaste.
The deviation of the route as presented by Sir Henry
Rawlinson to the committee, from Iconium to Caesareia,
instead of its being prolonged directly by the Gates of
Cilicia, is objectionable. A practical knowledge of the
country attests that there is no feasible line of approach
for a railway from Caesareia to Syria, through Taurus,
but that the line would have to return to the said
Gates of Cilicia, now known as the Kulak Boghaz.
This pass presents some difficulties, especially at one
point; but the only other passes available through
Taurus, that by Marash (Germanicia), that from
Malatiya to Besni, and that to Dyarbekir, present still
greater. Perhaps Sir Henry Rawlinson meant a branch
line from Iconium to Caesareia, which would be a very
easy matter. It is difficult to reply in detail in a vivá
voce examination. -
In other respects the proposed line, by having a
branch from Aleppo to the bay of Alexandretta, or to
the bay of Antioch, would be the complement of the
proposed Euphrates Valley Railway. . - -
“Mr. Skene, consul at Aleppo, who knows the
country perhaps better than most travellers,” reports
Mr. W. J. Maxwell, in Appendix No. 4, “ said to me,
and I have his authority for giving his opinion pub-
licly, that ‘any through line of railway between Con-
stantinople and Baghdad must pass through Alex-
andretta or Aleppo; and if through Alexandretta,
would follow the present post-road, passing through
the range of the Taurus, by Gulegh (Kulak), Boghaz
10
Pass, west of Adanah, where the great interior table-
land would be reached. This is probably four thousand
feet over the sea.' (Our observations made the uplands
at this point about three thousand feet above the level
of the sea.) “It is broken up by great mountain
Mr. Skene was also of opinion that “no
great difficulty would be met after the Taurus Pass until
Iconium would be reached. It would be difficult to
Kutiah (Kutaiyah), and still more difficult from Kutiah
to Ismid, or from Kutiah to Aideen.” As to any line
by Dyarbekir, he does not believe it practicable.
A next route noticed by Sir Henry Rawlinson was
one proposed by Colonel Herbert, the present political
agent in Turkish Arabia. It would leave the Medi-
terranean at Alexandretta, pass by Aleppo, across the
Euphrates at Bir to Urfah (Edessa), and so on to Dyar-
bekir, turning back by Nisibin to Mosul, and thence
following the valley of the Tigris to Baghdad and
Bussorah. This route is described as being, perhaps, one
hundred or one hundred and twenty miles, or perhaps
One hundred and fifty miles longer than the line down
the Euphrates Valley, as it makes a considerable détour
to the north-east, but it has the advantage of passing
through a number of large cities and centres of trade,
and lying generally amid settled and populous districts.
The distances here given are underrated. Admitting
the distance from Aleppo to Bir, or Birijik, to be about
the same as a given point at which the Euphrates Rail-
way would strike the river, still the distance between the
two points (about seventy miles), would be all gain to
the latter route. Then again it is at least one hundred
, or ’’
ranges.
11
and twenty-five miles from Bir to Dyarbekir by Urfah,
and it is over two hundred miles from Dyarbekir to
Mosul, where a point on the Tigris would be reached,
parallel to that attained by a journey of merely some
fifty or sixty miles from Aleppo to the Euphrates. To
this must be added the still more serious objection that
the northern part of the plain of Mesopotamia, between
Urfah and Dyarbekir, is either hilly and rocky, or
covered with an overflow of rugged basalt, cut through
by narrow but deep rivers. Dyarbekir stands in a
hilly region, and upon a knoll of the same character.
From below Mardin, which has been called the Quito of
Mesopotamia, the country is, however, admirably
adapted for a railway. As to “large cities and centres
of trade,” there are only Urfah, Dyarbekir, and Mosul.
Bir is a mere town and passage place, Mardin a town,
and Nisibin a ruin, that would, however, come to life
again. Arbil, Koi Sanjak, and Kirkuk lie to the east
of the valley of the Tigris, at the foot of the Kurdistan
Mountains; and while the trade of Dyarbekir and
Mosul would flow to Aleppo, as it does now, or to the
Euphrates Valley Railway, the trade of the latter places,
and of regions further east, would flow to Baghdad,
also a proposed station on the Euphrates line. There
is, then, commercially speaking, little advantage to be
gained by the line of the river Tigris, whilst a much
greater distance would have to be traversed, and an
almost incalculable increase of expenditure would have
to be incurred, and that at the same time that the com-
paratively more settled character of the country could
not be made for a moment to weigh against the serious
12
and fatal objections which lie in the way of such a
project being carried out.*.
A further alternative was noticed by Sir Henry Raw-
linson as suggested by a Mr. Childs. This was to leave
the Black Sea at Tereboli, near Trebizond ; to cross the
mountains to the valley of the Euphrates at Erzingan,
where it was to take a steamer and to pass down the
Euphrates to the point nearest to Dyarbekir, whence the
transit was to follow the Tigris down to the sea by
steamer. Sir Henry Rawlinson himself admits as ob-
jections to the proposed line, that it is only for two or
three months in the year that it is possible to navigate
either the Euphrates from Erzingan, or the Tigris from
Dyarbekir, and “if a steamer did go down the rivers,
it certainly would never come up again.” This project
further involves first a railway across the mountains
from Tereboli to Erzingan, and when what is embraced
in that brief expression of “across the mountains” is
* Mr. T. K. Lynch bore testimony (Answ. 777) to the inadvisability of the
line by Dyarbekir, as well as Mr. Ainsworth (Answ. 303). Mr. Lynch said
such a line would be practicable, but he added: “Tyarbekir is off my main
line, and it could be as easily connected afterwards, and there is nothing to be
obtained by going to Dyarbekir, and the country is mountainous. Dyarbekir
is a small place; there are only about five thousand inhabitants. By going by
the Euphrates line along all the rivers flowing into the Euphrates, a commu-
nication could be easily made into the trunk line with Dyarbekir and Mosul.”
That is to say, by the Khabur and its tributaries, and the Balik-Su, or
Balicha, the ancient Basileus or Royal River. The line by the Khabur is a
well-known old Assyrian and Arabian commercial route, and it is far preferable
to a branch line proposed by Mr. T. Macneil (Answ. 415), from Anah to Mosul.
While the valley of the Balik-su might be used to bring the commerce of Urfah
and Harran to the trunk line at Rakkah on the Euphrates, the old line of the
Khabur might be used to bring the commerce of Mosul by the Mygdonius or
by Singar to Arban (Habor, Arbonai). The tributaries to the river of Gozan
(Gausanitis of Ptolemy), the Jerjub, ancient Cherub, the Zirgan, and others,
point the way in a similar manner to Suwerek (Seleucia), to Dyarbekir, to Ras-
al-Ain, and to Mardim. All these Mesopotamian streams unite to form the
river of Habor, Chaboras, or Khabur, which flows into the Euphrates at
Karkisiyah (anc. Circesium). The towns and stations existing in former times
along this line are all enumerated by the Arabian geographers.
13
realised, the mind stands aghast. The plateau of
Erzerum is from five thousand five hundred to five
thousand seven hundred feet above the level of the sea.
It has to be reached from the sea across a chain of
mountains which attain a still greater elevation, and
which rise abruptly from the littoral country a few
miles from the sea. The approach by the valley of
the Tereboli river to Gumush Khaneh may possibly
diminish these difficulties, but they must still remain
very great. A second railway would have to be carried
from the Euphrates to Dyarbekir, which is exposed to
the same objections as Colonel Herbert's proposed route.
Indeed, as Sir Henry Rawlinson himself says, “that
particular part of the country being, as I believe, abso-
lutely impracticable for a railway.” There are other
objections of detail to the scheme, such as the character
of the country about Erzingan and Kapan Madan, and
more especially the falls near Gergen Kalehsi (Julio-
polis), where the Euphrates forces its way through
Taurus; but such discussions are needless where a
project is so utterly infeasible on general grounds. The
now celebrated M. de Moltke explored the last-men-
tioned portion of the river, in view of transmitting
the material of the Turkish army, before it crossed
from Malatiyah into Syria by the Besni Pass, and
previous to the battle of Nizāb, and found it to be utterly
impracticable.
Sir Henry Rawlinson also made mention of another
proposed route from the Black Sea, which was to start
from Trebizond, to ascend over five thousand feet to
Erzerum, to be prolonged thence to Wan, and then
14
down the Betlis-su to the Tigris, above Mosul, and
along the valley of the same river. The writer has
explored every one of the passes of Taurus, and except-
ing the pass of the Pyramus to Marash, he can con-
fidently assert that none offer greater difficulties than
that of Betlis. . Betlis itself, at an elevation of five
thousand four hundred and seventy feet, is built amid
perpendicular terraces of lava. The country south-
wards is a succession of mountainous ascents and de-
scents, and Macdonald Kinneir stigmatised the Derej
Tusul Pass, near Kufra, as the worst he ever met
with. -
“This line would indeed,” Sir Henry Rawlinson
remarked, “cross the range of the Taurus in about its
most difficult and impracticable portion, and I should
think that it would be utterly impossible to effect it,
the country being cut up by a succession of preci-
pitous ravines and mountain torrents and impracticable
defiles.”
It is to be further observed, in connexion with these
almost impracticable lines from the Black Sea, that the
opinions of almost all who gave evidence was opposed
to them, as compared with a terminus on the Medi-
terranean, upon the grounds that not only would such
a terminus be more exposed to interruption in case of
misunderstandings arising between Russia and Turkey,
but that whilst in case of necessity troops could be sent
directly from England to Syria, they would have to
reach a port on the Black Sea to pass by the Dardanelles
and Bosphorus, the sea itself possibly in possession of
an inimical fleet, or they would have to be sent across
15
Europe through several different countries, the rela-
tions with which might be disturbed at the very mo.
ment of an emergency.
| Sir Henry Rawlinson also briefly touched upon the
important question of connecting Europe directly with
India, and he noticed in connexion with such a
project three possible lines; one from Constantinople
by Erzerum to Teheran, Mushed, Herat, Kandahar,
and the Bolan Pass; another by Angora, Sivas, Dyar-
bekir, Kifri, Kermanshah, and Hamadan to Teheran ;
and a third, a prolongation of the Euphrates Valley
route or the Tigris route, by the sea-coast to Kurrachi.
These projects are upon so extensive a scale that it is
impossible to enter upon them here, even if we possessed
the knowledge of the countries east of Kurdistan neces-
sary to do so with effect, which we do not. Sir George
Jenkinson pertinently asked in connexion with these
projects: “If the difficulty the Euphrates line of eight
hundred and fifty miles has always had to contend
with has arisen from want of funds, and that difficulty
has hitherto been found insuperable as regards a per-
fectly flat line, which has been surveyed, would not
that difficulty apply with tenfold force to lines over
mountains and through ravines, and a length of from
three thousand to three thousand five hundred miles?”
Sir Henry Rawlinson's reply was noteworthy: “It
would no doubt apply to a certain extent; but a
through line would involve much larger, and higher,
and more important interests, which I think might
fairly be taken into consideration as against the mere
difficulties of raising a larger sum of money; that is to
16
say, it would of be immense importance to India to be
in continuous railway communication with Europe,
whereas it would be of very trifling importance merely
to have the territory bridged over between the Medi-
terranean and the Persian Gulf by a railway, while there
was still a long sea voyage, or a considerable sea voy-
age, on either side of the Euphrates Valley Railway.”
There is much truth in this. There can be no ques.
tion as to the immense importance to India, and even
to China, of a continuous railway communication with
Europe, and such a thing will no doubt be one day
brought about, unless the traffic is turned in another
direction by the opening of American trans-Pacific and
Atlantic lines, but in the mean time, the advantages
presented by the Euphrates Valley Railway are by no
means so trifling as Sir Henry Rawlinson thinks. The
line would in all probability be a portion of any more
extended scheme that could be carried out, especially
to Kurrachi; and in as far as the political interests of
Great Britain are concerned, it would be more advan-
tageous to her to have a railway, of which she could
hold the two termini, than to have a part of a long
continuous line, any portion of which, European or
Asiatic, might be interrupted by unforeseen complica-
tions. In the same sense, a prolongation on the one
side to Constantinople, and on the other to Kurrachi,
would be safer than a more northerly line.
General Chesney” was also examined upon the dif.
* How sad it is to have to place on record, that in the brief interval between
the first printing and reprinting of these few pages, this gallant officer should
have been removed from us for ever!
Justice to the memory of this distinguished and menitorious officer, who
17
ferent projects for establishing railway communication
between the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the ,
Persian Gulf, and he gave it as his decided opinion that
the line of the Euphrates from the Mediterranean is the
best route, and the only one desirable for the English
nation to construct. It might start from either Alex-
andretta or Seleucia, but he preferred the latter. General
Chesney was also in favour of a point near Bussorah
as a southern terminus. In reply to other questions
having reference to a Black Sea line, General Chesney
advanced, from practical knowledge of the country,
the same objections previously detailed, with the addi-
tional one, that Trebizond is only an open roadstead,
and, he added, such a line would be highly advan-
tageous to Russia, but of little or no service whatever
to this country, and the Tigris line would be a very
difficult and very expensive one. When cross-ques-
tioned upon the point of the comparative strategic
importance of a terminus on the Mediterranean, the
veteran leader of the Euphrates Expedition, after clearly
and distinctly enunciating the advantages of the latter
route as the most direct, the most easy, and the most
first carried out an expedition to the river Euphrates, but who died before the
dream of his life became a reality, will no doubt be done elsewhere.
To the author, who accompanied him in his long, arduous, and perilous expe-
dition, his memory is, however, especially endeared by many acts of personal
kindness and friendship, shown amidst trying circumstances; as also by the
high regard, which he could not but feel, for the ability shown in carrying out
an expedition in, at that time, little known regions, amidst all kinds of diffi-
culties, and for the dauntless courage with which he met, and the perseverance
and resolution with which he overcame these obstacles.
It was one of General Chesney’s favourite axioms, that nothing is impossible
where there is a will, and he carried out this principle with inflexible deter-
mination, yet with the good feelings of a practical Christian, ever ready to make
allowances for the prejudices of the half-civilised people with whom he had to
deal, and with a lively and undeviating anxiety for the welfare and happiness
e - &o
of those who were placed under his command.
IB
|
º}.
i
}
18 :
feasible, and as having both termini on the sea, where
they would be under the entire control of Great Britain,
pointedly added, “You would lose the Black Sea
instantly. That is a thing to look after, and the Black
Sea is half gone already.” General Chesney was also
as explicit upon the commercial advantages of the
Euphrates Railway as upon its advantages for the trans-
port of troops either to or from India. Nothing could
be more clear or satisfactory than his evidence upon
these subjects. He also bore strong testimony to the
friendly disposition and character of the natives. The
Arabs, he said, might look to some small gratuity,
but they need not be subsidised. They would be willing
also to labour. As to the climate, it would be better
than that on the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. The
Euphrates line would also have local traffic. The Suez
Canal has none. Mr. Palgrave was quoted as having
said that the country is sinking every day more hope-
lessly into poverty; nor is there any hope of ameliora-
tion under the existing land legislation. Turkey in
Asia is certainly not an improving country, but General
Chesney showed by such commercial returns as he had
at hand that the existing commerce is considerable.
The general has shown the same fact in detail in his
works, as has also Mr. Andrew in his “Euphrates
Valley Route to India,” and in other works. Further,
although the commerce of Aleppo-the most important
of all in North Syria—has passed in great part from
British into other hands, still wherever Europeans have
established themselves, as notoriously the Lynch's at
Baghdad, and Mr. C. Rassam at Mosul, the local com-
19
merce has undergone a prodigious impetus. Sir Charles
Wingfield objected to the breaking of bulk at Seleucia
and on the Persian Gulf, but this objection, as General
Chesney pointed out, and as Mr. Lynch admitted, only
applies to weighty and bulky merchandise, which can
be conveyed at a cheaper rate even from Baghdad by
the Suez Canal than it probably would be by the pro-
posed railway. This, however, is very conjectural, and
at all events would not affect the ordinary traffic on
the railway. Sir Charles Wingfield further did not
think that in a sanitary and other points of view, ex-
cepting in very great emergencies, where the saving
of a week might be of great importance, it would be
worth while to send troops by a long railway journey,
when in seven days more you could send them by a sea
voyage. General Chesney replied to this, “that the
Euphrates Railway route is safer in a sanitary point of
view than the Red Sea, and that the railway journey
would only be about three days from sea to sea.” The
civil and military officers, for example, in India would
be very glad to save the expenses entailed by seven
days' loss of time in going from England to India, or
vice versä. But if the speed between the two termini
could be made to attain anything like that at which
the service is performed between London and Edin-
burgh and Glasgow, it would not require more than
two days and a night to travel from the Persian Gulf
to the Mediterranean Sea. General Chesney estimated
the seven days' gain not upon the railway alone, but
upon the whole line. The length of the railway would
be about eight hundred and fifty miles, and there would
B 2
20
not be more than five hundred miles of this along the
actual valley of the Euphrates. Sir Charles Wing-
field also objected to the proposed line that it is a sort
of law, in railway operations, that through traffic alone,
on a very long line of railway, will not pay. This
after it had been fully explained that there would be
local traffic on the Euphrates line, and the following
interlocution had taken place between Mr. F. Walpole
and General Chesney : -
163. “Sir George Jenkinson has asked you about
local traffic; you, as an engineer officer, are, of course,
aware of the Pacific Railway?”—“Yes.”
164. “I believe that that railway now almost pays?”
—“Yes.”
165. “There is no local traffic upon that railway ?”
“ No.”
General Chesney was subjected to a sharp cross-
examination upon the details of the estimated saving of
from seven to ten days. These details could not be
given satisfactorily from memory, but the General sup-
plied them afterwards from his own memoranda, which
showed that the difference in favour of the Euphrates
line is, from London to Bombay, five hundred and
twenty-eight miles, and from London to Kurrachi eight
hundred and three miles.
In reply to Sir George Jenkinson as to whether
General Chesney did not consider that the two lines
(that by the Suez Canal and that by the Euphrates
Valley) might work together, and mutually assist each
other rather than they should be antagonistic to each
other, the General replied: “Yes; the best proof which
21
I can give of that is, that I proposed originally, in
1829, that both lines should be opened together, so
that I never kept to one as an exclusive thing; I was
of opinion that they would help one another consider-
ably.”—“One line (it was further suggested) might be
used for the conveyance of goods, and the other for the
conveyance of passengers?”—“Yes (was the reply),
and you want both ; there are people and commerce
enough to occupy both, and you want both.”
The committee sat for a second time on the 20th of
July, when Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Telford Macneil
were examined. Mr. Ainsworth expressed his con-
viction, from a personal exploration of the routes
through Asia Minor, and of all the great passes through
Mount Taurus, from Kurdistan to Cilicia, that the
proposed line of railway from the bay of Antioch to
k
3.
the Euphrates and down the Euphrates, was at once
the most feasible and the most economical. The ter-
minus might be at the foot of Mount Casius, a little
south of the embouchure of the Orontes, the bay of
Antioch being shallower and rocky off the ancient port
of Seleucia. Seleucia lies at the north end of the bay.
The landing-place of the Euphrates Expedition was
three or three and a half miles south of Seleucia, but north
of the Orontes; the proposed pier, jetty, or breakwater
would be south of the Orontes, near the foot of Mount
Casius, at a spot known to the natives as Karabujak.
The modern village of Suwaidiyah lies on the hills
eastwards, between Seleucia and the Orontes. As a
port, Mr. A. thought that a protective jetty would
suffice. The railway might be carried thence either by
22
the road north of the Orontes, used by the Euphrates
Expedition, or by the valley of the Orontes, but the
latter presented some difficulties. The only other
difficulties lay in the limestone district between the
lake of Antioch and Aleppo. Beyond, with the excep-
tion of a range of basaltic hills which are traversed by
the Euphrates, near Zenobia,” no difficulties occur,
and at this point a broad margin has been left between
the hills and the river bed wide enough for many
railways. Mr. A. considered the proposed line from
Alexandretta by the pass of Bailan, or the Gates of
Syria, would entail such heavy expenses, that even
if a line was brought from Constantinople to Alex-
andretta by the Kulak Boghaz, or Gates of Cilicia,
it would be preferable to keep along the coast to the
bay of Antioch rather than to carry the line over the
pass of Bailan. “Seleucia,” Mr. A. said, “is not only
the natural gate to the East, formed by nature, and
the entrance into Hamath, as it was called in ancient
times,i but when you try to carry roads across Asia
Minor, and across the Taurus, and across the countries
to the north, you are carried back by the force of
physical circumstances to that entrance into Syria, to
the south of which is also one continuous chain of
* That the remarkable ruins at the southern end of this pass, now known as
Zelebe or Zilibi, represent a town named Zenobia, after the celebrated Queen
of Palmyra, is shown by the account given by Procopius of the campaigns of
Belisarius, where Chosroes is described as marching in three days from Circe-
sium to Zenobia (Bell. Persic., i. 18; ii. 5). Queen Zenobia is described as
flying to the banks of the Euphrates on the approach of Aurelian to Palmyra
(Gibbon’s Decl. and Fall, chap. xi.)
† Hamath-Zobah, afterwards Epiphamia, and now Hamah, appears to have
been a different place from Hamath, for the Talmuds, the Jewish Targums, and
the ancient Syriac version of the Old Testament, all explain Hamath by Antioch
—a city which must have had a name prior to the conquests of Alexander.
23
hilly country, and hence it is that it is the only natural
opening into the interior. A line of railway carried
from Constantinople by the Gates of Cilicia, as proposed,
would of necessity have to join the proposed Euphrates
Valley Railway: it would be a complement to it.”
Question 298. “When you got to the Euphrates,
your line would turn down and follow the course of the
Euphrates?”—“Precisely so, saving the curves.”
299. “What would be the total length of it?”—“I
believe about five hundred miles.”
What was here meant was the total distance to be
followed along the Euphrates Valley from Balis or
Jaber Castle to the alluvial plains of Babylonia, where
the line would turn off to Baghdad. The total length
of the proposed Euphrates Valley Railway from the
Mediterranean to Bussorah or Mohammerah would be
about eight hundred and fifty miles, and more, if pro-
longed to Bushire on one side of the Persian Gulf, or
to Grain or Koweit on the other. When Mr. Ains-
worth describes the Hawi or plains along the banks of
the river in its upper portions as fertile, and the coun-
try beyond as desert, the latter word must be accepted
in the sense of a wilderness, not of arid or sandy plains.
There is almost always vegetation in the wildest regions
of Syria or Mesopotamia. Xenophon's description of
old, of “a country full of wormwood, if any other
kind of shrubs or plants grew there, they had all an
aromatic smell, but no trees appeared,” is as nearly
accurate as can be given in modern times; there is
vegetation, but it is of a peculiar character, and it is
very questionable if any portions of such plains could
24
be reclaimed, except where there is a plentiful supply
of water for irrigation. Mr. A. also spoke favourably
of the Arabs to be met with along the valley of the
Euphrates, as open to conciliation; and he added,
“Probably it may be necessary sometimes to subsidise
some of the shiekhs to a small extent; but the mere
fact of carrying a railway through the country would
bring the persons who were carrying out that under-
taking into constant contact with the Arabs, and would
establish a friendly feeling with them; so much so,
that they themselves would preserve a work in which
they naturally must be led to take a part either as
labourers or as providers of the necessities of life to
those who were carrying out the undertaking.” Mr. A.
was also examined upon the point of opening the
ancient harbour of Seleucia, and he said that no doubt
a large basin might be excavated close to Seleucia (or,
in other words, the old harbour might be enlarged by
excavation), but he was not prepared to say if such an
undertaking would not be more expensive than con.
structing a harbour at the foot of Mount Casius, pro-
tected by a breakwater. He also gave testimony upon
the comparative advantages of a harbour in the bay
of Antioch over that of Alexandretta, and upon the
centralising of the commerce of North Syria and Meso-
potamia at Aleppo. This indeed, owing to the diffi-
culties of communication with Constantinople, extends
to beyond the Taurus in many districts, as was found
to be the case in the valley of Gurun and Derendah,
near Malatiyah. - o
A change came over the prospect with the examina-
25
tion of the civil engineers. Mr. Telford Macneil, who
had been engaged with Sir John Macneil in conducting
Some of the surveys upon the coast of the Mediter-
ranean with a view to the Euphrates line, at once
declared himself strongly in favour of Scanderoon
(Iskendrun) or Alexandretta as the point of debarkation.
The harbour there is at the head of a gulf, and well
sheltered. All that would be necessary would be a
landing-place. The point suggested by Mr. Ainsworth
at the foot of Mount Casius had been surveyed and
given up. It would require a considerable amount of
work, and not be a good harbour when done. This, it
is to be suspected, applied to a site suggested by Sir
John Macneil at the immediate foot of Mount Casius,
and not to the point suggested by Mr. A., which was on
the level between the Orontes and Mount Casius. It
appears, however, from Mr. Telford Macneil's evidence,
that no harbour was projected in the bay of Antioch,
but it was proposed to convert the Orontes river into
a navigable river for about a mile up, two piers to be
thrown out across the bar, one on each side of the
river. No wonder that such a project should have
proved more expensive than a jetty at Alexandretta.
Granting the superiority of the bay of Alexandretta
over the bay of Antioch, which it is impossible to dis-
pute, there are expenses connected with the selection of
such as a point of debarkation, as well as with any
given point on the other bay. First, Alexandretta is
not healthy, and it would require an estimated expen-
diture of from two to three thousand pounds to drain
it. In the next place, the railway would have to be
26
carried over the Bailan or Balan Pass, to an elevation
of two thousand one hundred feet above the level of
the sea, by a mean gradient of one in twenty-one, and
a maximum gradient of one in thirteen.
399. (Sir Stafford Northcote.) “With what gradients
upon lines well known, and already in existence, would
you compare that?”—“I think that the best comparison
would be with the Mont Cenis, and there the gradients
are very much worse.”
400. (Sir C. Wingfield.) “That is on the Fell sys-
tem?”—“Yes; and I think that this should be on the
Fell system for fifteen miles, but not on the Fell gauge,
but a continuous gauge all the way through of four
feet eight and a half inches.”
Little did General Chesney, when he landed the
material of the Euphrates Expedition from the George
Canning, aided by the officers and crew of H.M.S.
Columbine, and conveyed the segments of steam-boats,
boilers (over two tons in weight), and a ponderous
diving-bell, from thence by a comparatively open road
to the Euphrates, dream that it would in future days
be proposed to carry a railway by another road over a
mountain pass comparable with Mont Cenis It is not
that the pass of Bailan is actually comparable with
Mont Cenis in elevation, but the gradients for the two
thousand one hundred feet are. Mr. W. J. Maxwell,
One of the civil engineers employed on the same survey,
spent in fact some time upon the Mont Cenis Railway
on his way to Syria, his instructions being that there
were not to be any curves or gradients upon the
27
proposed line more difficult than those upon the Mont
Cenis Railway. (Appendix No. 4.)
The pass of Bailan—the Gates of Syria—although
only two thousand one hundred and seventy feet in
elevation, is a very formidable and rocky pass. The
most common rocks are clay-slate, sandstones, and
limestones (“Ainsw. Res.,” p. 317); the schists or
shales predominate so on the south side of the pass
that no road is carried that way, but the town of
Bailan (the Pinara of Pliny and Ptolemy, Erana of
Cicero, and Pictanus of the Jerusalem. Itinerary), near
the summit of the pass, is on a firmer basis, with solid
approaches. The Mosque was built, according to the
Mecca Itinerary, by Sultan Selim, and the Khan by
Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent. There are also
remains of a causeway, of an aqueduct, and of a bridge
appertaining to the time of the Romans. (“Lares and
Penates; or, Cilicia and its Governors,” p. 263.)
As opposed to this we have a comparatively open
country from the bay of Antioch to the city of same
name. A line of levels was carried by Lieutenant
Murphy, R. E., and Mr. W. T. Thompson, from the
shores of the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and the
Section given in the maps which accompany General
Chesney's great work on the Euphrates Expedition
shows that the elevation between the sea and Antioch
does not come up to five hundred feet. If, after Alex-
ander the Great founded Alexandreia ad Issum, now
Alexandretta, or the more ancient Myriandrus was
named after the victor at Issus, the Macedonian kings
28
of Antioch—his successors—founded the port of Seleu-
ceia, or Seleucia Pieria, on the bay of Antioch, it could
only be because that bay was more accessible than that
of Issus or Alexandretta, and that the facilities of access
overbalanced the superiority of the bay of Alexandretta,
if there was or is any real superiority. All history,
and the magnitude of the ruins, attest to the importance
of Seleucia Pieria as a port in the time of the Mace-
donians and of the Romans. It was also of great
importance, in a military point of view, during the wars
between the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies. (Polybius,
v. 58–60.) St. Paul and Barnabas' embarked thence
for Cyprus on their first mission to Asia Minor
(Acts, xiii. 4.)
The harbour of Seleucia Pieria is two thousand feet
long by twelve hundred feet wide, occupying an area of
forty-seven acres, and it was in fact as large as the
export and import basins of the East and West India
Docks together. The inner port is entirely excavated,
and its canal is one thousand feet long; the area of the
outer port is about eighteen thousand feet square,
and it affords good shelter, but is obstructed by sand.
There are two moles, two hundred and forty paces
apart, constructed of enormous stones, and a pier called
that of St. Paul. -
Captain W. Allen, R.N., to whose work (“The Dead
Sea, a New Route to India,” &c.), we are indebted for
the above figures, after remarking that “The best and
most obvious natural highway between Europe and
the interior of Asia—that is, where there are the
least obstructions—is through the lower valley of the
29
Orontes and by Aleppo, the basin of which is separated
from that of the Euphrates and Tigris—the vast plains
of Mesopotamia—by hills of very moderate elevation,
such as would be easily surmounted even by a rail-
road,” adds, apropos of the reopening of the harbour
of Seleucia, “it may be asked why I propose to con-
struct, or rather to reconstruct a harbour on a coast
where not only is there no commerce, but where there
is even a very small population in scattered and poor
villages. Although this is but too true, the original
and natural elements of prosperity, which in former
times required such an outlet, still remain in the inex-
haustible fertility of this wonderful country. This
may be said to comprise, not only the neighbouring
rich valleys of the Orontes and Bekaa, to which the
cities of the Tetrapolis and many others owed their
origin and rapid prosperity; but it was the channel
through which flowed the riches of Mesopotamia, which
gave birth to a Nineveh and a Babylon; and even the
wealth of Persia and the furthest east have had and
still may find an emporium in Seleucia. The great
fertility of Mesopotamia was carried to its utmost
limit by means of the numerous canals for irrigation
with which the country was everywhere intersected;
some of the largest of these were navigable. They
excited the wonder and interest of Alexander the
Great, who examined them personally, and “steered
the boat himself.' He employed a great number of
men to cleanse and repair them. ‘Of all the countries
I know,” says Herodotus, ‘it is without question the
best and the most fertile. It produces neither figs nor
30
vines, nor olives, but in recompense the earth is suit-
able for all sorts of grain, of which it yields always two
hundred per cent, and in years of extraordinary
fertility as much as three hundred per cent.’ (Clio,
p. 155, Fr. Trans.)
“These advantages inspired ancient rulers, mer-
chants, capitalists, and engineers to construct works to
which neither the destructive power of man, nor the
convulsions of nature during more than two thou-
sand years, have been able to do irreparable injury.
It is truly an enduring monument of the well-directed
energies of its founders, and has vainly invited their
apathetic successors to profit by so valuable a legacy.
“The commerce of the rich countries I have alluded
to has, indeed, never ceased; for although almost anni-
hilated by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,
which enabled a maritime nation to divert the greater
part of that route, some portion still flows languidly by
a perverted course and an inferior outlet, owing to the
neglect of this, its natural channel and emporium.
Thus, the present trade of the East, centering in Aleppo,
is carried on by means of camels and mules over the
mountain pass of Bailan—the Syrian Gates—and em-
barked at the unhealthy and inconvenient port of Skan-
derān, at the head of the gulf of the same name.
“The produce of the great basin of the Euphrates
and the Tigris, including Persia and the nations on the
southern slopes of the Taurus and Caucasus, demands
an outlet. The natural One is of course the Persian
Gulf; but the stream of commerce does not set that
way, the demand being in the west. Providence has
3}
given the means, which were fully profited by in former
times. The greater development of the present day
does not find the ocean route sufficient, and the time
may come when its increasing exigencies may stretch
its iron tentacles even across Mesopotamia. These
are visions of the future; which, however, daily ex-
perience proves are nearer to the present than any one
dares to imagine. Leaving these to be unfolded by
time, the present facilities are amply sufficient for the
present resources.
“The country possesses in itself locomotive power to
an enormous amount, which is produced and wasted,
waiting century after century for employment. I mean
in the thousands and thousands of camels—ships of the
desert—that live only to crop the luxuriant herbage of
the wide countries of which they might convey the
more valuable productions; by a sluggish current, it is
true, but sufficient in amount to fill more and greater
marts and ports than Seleucia, and to call forth the
swiftest energies of steam to carry off its slow and steady
influx. In addition to all this, by the employment of
their camels, the wandering Arab tribes would be re-
claimed to civilisation and religion. -
“We may see what can be expected of the revival of
commerce in these rich countries by what has been
done at Bairut; where, with a port that affords less
facilities for shipping goods than even Skanderún, the
town has become three times as large as it was only
twenty years ago. (This was in 1855. The progress
has been still more remarkable of late.) But Seleucia,
with a port where ships could load and unload at the
32
quays without the tedious intervention of boats, and
being safe from the delays of bad weather, would draw
to itself the trade of all Aleppo, to which city a good
road could be made, and eventually a railroad, as it
has been ascertained by General Chesney's valuable
and careful survey that there are no obstacles to the
construction of one.
“These fertile tracts now lie waste and unprofitable,
except for imperfect and desultory cultivation by the
hordes inhabiting the mountains on their borders, who,
through devastating wars and a long series of bad
governments, are reduced to such a condition of abase-
ment, both physical and moral, that they draw but the
merest necessities of food and clothing from the varied
and inexhaustible bounties of nature by which they are
surrounded. With security and encouragement, how-
ever, they would not only become active cultivators of
the raw material, and increasing consumers of it when
returned to them in a manufactured state, but they
would be zealous disseminators in regions which are
now, from various impediments, inaccessible to British
enterprise.
“If the better outlet were established, which the
restoration of the fine harbour of Seleucia would afford,
it is probable that many of the merchants of Aleppo,
especially the Franks, would be induced to settle here,
by the greater convenience they would find for their
transactions, and by the greater chances of security for
life and property here than at Aleppo, where they are
in constant danger from the turbulent and fanatical
33
population of that city, of which there was a melan-
choly instance in the autumn of 1850.
“The fine scenery and beautiful climate of the valley
of the Orontes might also attract emigrants or specu-
lators from England, while the native population of the
north, or right bank of the Orontes—who are all
Christians, and though industrious and well-disposed
are poor, and stationary on the soil—would have
energy and elasticity imparted to them by the example
of settlers and the rewards of increasing prosperity. So
that from these germs improved grades of society would
soon arise to emulate the glories of ancient Seleucia.
Such a result could not but be beneficial to the Turkish
government, as it would bring great increase of revenue
to its coffers from regions now yielding little or none.
It would add to the strength of the empire, and be the
means of imparting vigour to distant provinces, now
exhausted and languishing, in the efforts made for the
benefit of the capital.”
General Chesney and Captain W. Allen, R.N., both
estimated the expense of reopening this port to naviga-
tion, chiefly by the means formerly used by the inha-
bitants, of letting down the winter floods by the ravine.
Strabo tells us, indeed (xvi. 2, 8), that the ancient
name of the place was Udatos Potamoi, or “Rivers of
Water,” descriptive of these mountain torrents.”
* The extensive and remarkable ruins at Seleucia Pieria have been described
by Pococke, by General Chesney in his “Expedition to the Euphrates,” by
Captain W. Allen, R.N., “The Dead Sea, a New Route to India,” vol. ii.
p. 210, et seq., and in “Lares and Penates; or, Cilicia and its Governors,”
p. 268. There is a very interesting engraving in the latter work of the valley
C
34
“The great advantages to be gained by opening
this port are " (to quote “Cilicia and its Governors,”
p. 269), “that it is nearer at hand than that of Alexan-
dretta; that it avoids the difficult navigation of the
Gulf of Issus; that whereas Alexandretta is infamous.
as one of the most unhealthy spots on the coast of
Syria, and hence few can be induced to reside there,
Seleucia is a comparatively healthy spot, and would, if
opened to commerce, soon become in all probability a
flourishing town; that the road from Seleucia to An-
tioch, Aleppo, and the Euphrates is comparatively open,
while that from Alexandretta has to cross the formid-
able Syrian Gates—the mountain pass of Bailan—
between Amanus and Rhosus; thaf while Cilicia is
constantly disturbed by local dissensions and the re-
bellion of races, the neighbourhood of Seleucia, chiefly
tenanted by peaceful Christians, is remarkable for its
tranquillity and security; and, lastly, Seleucia would
constitute the safest harbour (especially for steamers)
on the whole coast of Syria, and would, from that
circumstance, and from its greater proximity to Antioch
and Aleppo, entirely supersede the ports of Bairut, of
Tripoli, and Latakiyeh (and, it might have been added,
of Alexandretta). The same circumstances that have
existed from the period of Mr. John Barker's settling
here (‘Cilicia and its Governors' was in part written by
Mr. Barker's son, W. Burckhardt Barker, long time
of the Orontes, with the bay of Antioch and Mount Casius in the background,
from a sketch by Mr. C. F. Barker, which gives an excellent general idea of
the valley. So also with regard to the illustrations in General Chesney’s large
work.
35
a resident on the spot), and which induced General
Chesney to adopt it as the site for landing the steam-
boats and equipments of the Euphrates Expedition,
still exist; and at a very moderate outlay Seleucia
might be again rendered what it once was, the most
capable, the most flourishing, the most fertile, the most
populous, the most wealthy, the most beautiful, and the
most healthy port of Syria.” *
The most important consideration in favour of a port
or place of debarkation in the bay of Antioch after
those of feasibility, of economy, and of an open road, is
that it is self-contained. It is protected on one side by
Mount Casius and its offshoots towards Antioch, and on
the other by Mount Rhosus and its spur towards the
sea, known to the ancients as Mount Coryphaeum,
and whence the surname of Seleucia Pieria, or the
“Stony,” and now called, from its ruggedness, Ras
Khanzir, or the “Boar's Head.” The valley of the
Orontes, whilst it presents the easiest opening from the
Mediterranean into Syria, along the whole coast, is
indeed, at the same time, the most secluded, the least
liable to interference from without, and the most easily
defended.
Alexandretta, in contrast with Seleucia, has never
been a town. The superior genius of Alexander has,
it has been said, been shown in the selection of Alex-
andreia ad Issum and of Alexandreia, the Hellenic
capital of Egypt. But it does not appear from the
records of antiquity or of modern times, that the former
ever prospered. It is true that it has been for many
C 2 *
36
years the port of Aleppo, and factories or stores were
Once established there, but such is the unhealthiness
of the place that no one lives there who can help it.
In Pococke's time it was only “a miserable poor town
that has rather the appearance of a small village.”
“The air,” says the learned doctor, “causes a sort of
lingering disorder, often attended with a jaundice, and
if they do not change the air they commonly die; it
also often throws persons, when they first come, into
violent and mortal fevers.” “The Europeans live most
in Bailan, and always sleep there, and if by accident
they are obliged to lie here, it is worse than if they had
stayed in Scanderoon all the summer.” When Niebuhr
visited it, it contained only sixty or seventy mean
houses. “Alexandretta is now the tomb of all who
inhabit it for any length of time without any change of
air.” (“Lares and Penates,” p. 114.) Lieutenant
Murphy, R.E., Mr. W. Thomson, and the writer, were
all three seized with a violent fever whilst engaged in
surveying the coast, and were glad to take refuge on
board a merchantman lying in the harbour. This was
in 1835, in the time of M. Martenelli's agency. In
1840 the writer found the place somewhat improved
under Mr. Hayes. (“Trav.,” &c., p. 92.) It is pro-
posed to drain the place, and thus render it healthy, at
an expense of some two or three thousand pounds. But
it is questionable if this can be effectually done, as part
of the marsh appears to lie below the level of the sea.
At all events it was tried by Ibrahim Pasha without
success. Possibly, if the course of the waters from the
37
pass of Bailan and Joseph's or Jacob's Spring were
diverted, something might be done, but it is doubtful if
the unhealthiness of the site is not in part connected
with its situation, as in the case with Tarsus, as well as
with the existence of neighbouring marshes.”
A railway by the pass of Bailan would, it appears
from Mr. Telford Macneil's evidence, have to descend
at the same rate to the plain of Antioch as it ascends
from Alexandretta. It would also be carried across
the plain to the north of the lake of Antioch, till at a
distance of forty-seven miles from the sea it would
meet the range of limestone hills which divide the plain
of Antioch from the plain of Dana. The great objection
to this portion of the line is that it does not include the
town of Antioch in its progress; other objections pre-
sent themselves in the fact that the plain north of the
lake, near the Kara Su, is at times flooded—so much so,
that there are at that point the remains of an extensive
* The marshes in the neighbourhood of Iskenderun, of such melancholy
celebrity for their fatality to Europeans, appear to occupy a spot taken from
the bay by the gradual accumulation of gravelly detritus, causing a gradual
increase of land, ultimately filling up the inlet and shutting out the sea, while
at the same time the interior being lower than the bank of detritus on the
shore, has caused the waters of abundant springs—Jacob’s (or Joseph’s) Well—
to spread themselves over the land. These have, however, in later times been
much drained. At present the marsh is formed of a boggy soil, containing
much iron and mud, with anodonta and other fresh water shells; while below,
beds of sands and of maris, with recent marine and littoral shells, were turned
up in digging the drain. º *
The building called Godefroy de Bouillon’s Castle, would indicate a change
in the condition of the soil; and in an old Italian chart the author has seen
it is marked as close to the shore, from which it is now nearly a mile distant.
Major Rennell proposed an examination of the state of the castle, in order to
compare its height from the present level as compared with that reported by
Mr. Drummond about seventy years ago. The difference of level, however, in
alluvia deposited in a scarcely tidal sea, does not in the intervening valleys
indicate the increase of new lands so much as the difference in horizontal
distance. (Res. in Assyria, &c., p. 319.)
38
causeway raised on arches, known as that of Murad
Pasha. The direct prolongation of the line eastward
would also bring it in contact with the worst portion
of the limestone hills. To obviate this, Mr. T. Macneil
would carry it southwards to the pass of Sansareen, or
Kassara-al-Benal, or it is to be supposed to about the
same point it would be carried if passing from Antioch
to Aleppo south of the lake. Mr. Telford Macneil gave
evidence that to make a good harbour at the Orontes
“as we propose” (that is, converting the Orontes into
a navigable river), would cost half a million of money,
and a railway to a common point, beyond Bailan or
Balan Pass, would cost five hundred and thirty-two
thousand pounds 1110Fe, as against the cost of the Balan
line to the same point, namely, four hundred and fifty-
five thousand pounds. A railway over the Balan would
actually be cheaper than a railway up the Orontes to
that same point.”
457. (Sir C. Wingfield.) “How comes it to be
cheaper, because one goes over a much more difficult
ground than the other. Leaving out the harbour, you
say that a railway over the Balan would be cheaper?”
—“Yes.” r
458. “How is that, when it has to go over a pass,
and the other line goes over level ground?”—“It is
very easy to understand it. This is the Mediterranean,
and it is cut off from the inland by a high range of
mountains all along the coast, and the only outlet is that
by the river Orontes (the italics are ours), which goes
through the mountains; and in order to go up there,
39
you have to cross the river very many times; it is a
large river with considerable floods. I have the details
of the plans, and the matter has been worked out cor-
rectly, so that I am speaking with confidence.”
459. (Mr. F. Walpole.) “Had you not forty bridges
and culverts by the survey?”—“Yes.”
The comparison here made, it will be observed, is not
between the expenses of a line from the Mediterranean
to Aleppo by the valley of the Orontes, but by the
banks of the river Orontes, with a line by the Bailan
Pass. In the first place, the rendering the mouth of
the Orontes navigable would appear to be objectionable
on the score of expense alone. Such an operation
would, it is estimated, cost half a million of money,
whereas laying aside the question of a jetty, General
Chesney and Captain Allen, R.N., estimated, we have
seen, the cost of reopening the ancient harbour of
Seleucia at only thirty thousand pounds, which would
be actually less than the expense of constructing a
jetty at Alexandretta, the construction of a landing-
pier at which place is estimated by Mr. Telford Macneil
(Ans. 432) at fifty thousand pounds.
Hut where is the necessity for following the banks of
the river Orontes at all? When the Euphrates Expe-
dition landed at the mouth of the river its course was
at once explored, and it was found to be enclosed within
precipitous rocks at a few miles from its embouchure.
This line was then at once abandoned, and the material
of steam-boats, &c., was conveyed across the country
north of the river, but still in the valley of Antioch,
40
nor did the road thus adopted once cross the river till
it reached the bridge of Antioch itself. A line of levels
was subsequently carried by Lieutenant Murphy, R.E.,
and Mr. W. Thomson, from the Mediterranean to the
Euphrates, and it appears from that that the elevation
between the sea and Antioch is under five hundred feet,
as compared with two thousand one hundred feet at
Bailan. Dr. Pococke, after visiting the ruins of Seleucia,
says: “I crossed the plain southwards about four miles
to the Orontes. From the mountains the country
appears like a plain all the way to Antioch; but about
a league to the east from the sea there are low hills
almost as far as that city, which have fruitful valleys
between them.”
In a question, then, of such great importance in the
view of outlay, commercial, sanitary, and political
advantages, it may fairly be held that the comparison,
backed as it is by the authority of eminent engineers,
does not hold good, and that no decision ought to be
arrived at in a question of such magnitude until a com-
parison has been made by actual survey of the expenses
that would be entailed by a railway carried along the
road used for the transport of the material of the
Euphrates Expedition (not by the banks of the river)
with those of a railway carried over the Bailan Pass,
some fifteen or sixteen miles in length. If we read Mr.
T. Macneil's figures (Answer No. 398) correctly, the
ascent and descent of the Bailan Pass comprise fifteen
or sixteen miles of difficult country, whereas it is only
fifteen or sixteen from Seleucia to Antioch by a compa-
41
ratively easy country. It would require a phalanx of
civil engineers to satisfy the mind that the expenses of
sixteen miles of a rocky pass would be less than a line
of sixteen miles over a country not rising to an elevation
of five hundred feet. With some forty skew bridges
and culverts the comparison might be established, but
if it can be shown that these are not wanted, the com-
parison no longer holds good. From Antioch to the
limestone hills by Jisr Hadid—the “iron bridge” and the
Pontisfer of the Crusaders*—the country is, as it also
is from the eastern foot of Bailan, very level; but by
the line from Seleucia to Antioch, in addition to the
advantages before enumerated, the town itself would be
served, and sixteen miles of the most beautiful country
in the world opened to occupation and settlement. So
satisfied was Mr. Barker, long time consul in Egypt,
with the salubrity of the valley of Antioch, that he
retired there upon ceasing his official labours; and Dr.
Holt Yates, a physician of experience, proposed to
establish a sanitarium there for Anglo-Indians. The
pass of Bailan, although the town of Bailan is itself a
pleasant and healthy mountain residence, presents no-
thing to compare with the long valley of Antioch to
tempt Europeans to reside there. The latter was the
* Sir John Macneil, in his evidence (Answ. 846), describes this bridge as
#ho only . from Aleppo to Scanderoon. “At a toll-bar on one of the old
Roman bridges over the Orontes,” he says, “I stopped some hours, and I got
a list of the amount of traffic which passed through it, and I found, by very
careful examination of extracts from it, that there were ten thousand camels,
and horses, and mules which passed weekly through that toll-bar. It was the
only way in which they could get from Aleppo to Scanderoon, so that there was
not a single ton of goods which did not go that way.”
§:
42
site of the ancient Daphne, renowned throughout all
antiquity for the charms of its woods and waters, and
for the luxuriousness and dissipation entailed by a too
prolific nature in a wanton climate.
Captain Charlewood, R.N., acting-lieutenant of the
Euphrates Expedition, was called in before the com-
mittee at its sitting of July 24, 1871. Captain Charle-
wood expressed it as his opinion—the result of long
practical acquaintance with the country and with the
whole of the proposed line—that “the only route which
this nation ought to undertake would be from the bay
of Antioch, or Scanderoon, down the valley of the
Euphrates to the Persian Gulf.” Captain Charlewood
would also select the south-east end of the bay of
Antioch as the starting-point, because, from the expe.
rience he has had there, it is, he says, the best anchor-
age; and moreover, in the prevailing winds (the
westerly winds), they do not blow home there as they
do in the north of the bay, or even direct upon the
Orontes. He preferred the bay of Antioch to that of
Alexandretta, because the latter is unhealthy, and more-
over, the Bailan Pass, although no doubt it is prac-
ticable for the engineers, would be a costly undertaking
to get through. Captain Charlewood at the same
time believed it to be practicable to render Alexan-
dretta healthy by draining the marshes. The harbour
itself is the finest on the coast, and can contain any
amount of shipping. On the point proposed at the
south-east point of the bay nothing more would be
required than a breakwater run out; the anchorage is
*
43
excellent, and vessels of the size of the Indian troop-
ships would be able to lie there, and to disembark
troops. “The line would then pass for about four
miles along the valley of Swadea (or Suwaidyah, Seleucia
Arabicised), when it would enter the course of the
Orontes, and follow it more or less up to Antioch ; this
last part would be the most difficult of the whole
railway.” Captain Charlewood, leaving the south-east
corner of the bay of Antioch, would apparently carry
the line across the bay to the pass of the Orontes;
but if such a line was found to be difficult and ex-
pensive, it could be carried by a single bridge across
the Orontes, below the pass, so as to join the line of the
Euphrates transport, and a comparison instituted of
the expenses and difficulties attendant upon the road
along the banks of the Orontes, and the road followed
by the Euphrates transport up the valley of Antioch.
Whilst Mr. Telford Macneil would cross the river
Euphrates at or near Balis, a step rendered objection-
able by the basaltic pass above Zenobia being open only
on the right bank, Captain Charlewood would cross
somewhere about Anah, which would be unobjection-
able, and probably very desirable. Captain Charlewood
would also select Muhammara as a terminus—a point
which will be afterwards referred to. Captain Charle-
wood further bore the most favourable and satisfactory
evidence, founded upon experience, as to the character
of the native population—those settled on the river.
Captain Charlewood assuming that a railway over the
Bailan would cost less to carry a railway from the
44
mouth of the Orontes up to the same point, and
assuming also that Alexandretta is made a healthy
harbour, would, like Mr. Ainsworth (comp. answer 348
with 613), give the preference to the latter; but this, as
has been before shown, is assuming those two points to
be settled. A comparison of expense ought to be made
as between the pass of Bailan and the line of the
Euphrates transport from the Orontes to Antioch, as
well as with a line by the pass of the Orontes, and
along the banks of that river. Captain Charlewood
was also cross-examined upon the character of the
country in respect to adaptation to cultivation along
the banks of the Euphrates, and his replies were emi-
nently satisfactory. The fact is, however, that this is
a point very difficult to explain except in detail. The
character of the banks in so long a course varies very
much. As a general rule, the trend of the river is, like
others, tortuous. The friable rocks which constitute
the low uplands, and which are mostly covered with a
coarse vegetation, come closer to the river at each ad-
vancing angle. Between each promontory thus con-
stituted, and alternately on each side of the river, are
grassy alluvial plains called Hawi, which vary in extent
at almost every point. These Hawi are all arable land.
Many are cultivated, and have their own villages or
towns. Sometimes these grassy plains are not mere
Hawi, but are of great extent. Such are the plains
upon which the Beni Fakal encamp in thousands, north
of Balis, and such are the plains near Rakkah, at Deir
(town with cultivation), at Kirkisiyah on the Khabur
(Same), at Mayadin or Rahabah (same), at Wurdi, at Al
45
Rayim, at Anah (on the right bank), and at many
other places. The extent of the grassy lands, again,
from the river banks into the interior, varies from half
a mile to distances that extended beyond the horizon.
Grassy and fertile lands were also met with in the
interior. It is again difficult to say how far cultivation
might or might not be carried if the lands were irri-
gated. Below Anah stony soils were cultivated in
former times by means of gigantic water-wheels. Below
Felujah all is alluvial plain, and the greater part of
Babylonia and Chaldaea is open to cultivation. It is
safe, however, to adopt as a principle, that the alluvial
plains and valleys along the river are the best adapted
to settlement and cultivation; that the stony soils clad
with a coarse vegetation, commonly called “desert” or
“wilderness,” are not available; and that the excep-
tions rather prove the rule than contradict it. There is .
enough alluvial soil along the banks of the Euphrates
to support millions.” -
Upon the question of carrying the line by Bir to
Dyarbekir, Captain Charlewood at once said he did not
like it at all.
661. “Why not?”—“For the reasons which I have
* Mr. T. K. Lynch, speaking of the so-called “desert” between the Euphrates
and Damascus, said he had travelled over the country in winter or early spring,
and it was all a green plain covered with verdure and crocuses. Travelling
over it in July, it was a red kind of clay, with a burnt grass upon it more like
a prairie. Again (Answ. 740), “If you could get water, it could be cultivated
the whole way to Damascus; it is a red loam, it is not a desert sand.”
“The Bedouin tribes,” he added, “ come up from about the Jebel Shammar
in the south, and find pasturage all the way to the Euphrates; they eat it up as
they go along. I have seen what you call a desert swarming with people, who
come up merely to eat its pasturage.” This, it is to be observed, must be at
certain seasons; both the Aneizeh in Syria, and the Shammar in Mesopotamia,
have their winter and summer pasturages.
46
stated, namely, that for the English nation I think we
ought to have our terminus in the Mediterranean,
and also on account of the great expense which that
Trebizond route would entail, and it would not go
through Aleppo.”
662. “Are you aware that a suggestion has been
made of a line starting from the Mediterranean, and
going through Dyarbekir and Aleppo P” – “If the
country were settled such a long route might be taken,
but the length is the great objection to it. If you want
a route to India, I presume that the shortest is the
best.” e
663. “By taking the route through Urfah, and Dyar-
bekir, and Mosul, would there be greater local traffic’”—
“I am inclined to doubt that. I think that more traffic
would be got down the bank of the Euphrates; not
immediately of course, but ultimately.”
This was a very felicitous way of putting it. A rail-
way to Urfah, Dyarbekir, and Mosul would at first
have more local traffic than a railway by Balis or Jaber
Castle, but not sufficiently so to cover the enormous
difference of expenditure or the delay occasioned by
such a roundabout way to or from India. The com-
merce of the three towns above mentioned also already
centres in Aleppo, and this would be still more the case
when that city had a railway station. It would, in
fact, be a fair experiment, if a first portion of the rail-
way was constructed from the Mediterranean to Aleppo
as a beginning. A prolongation of the same by the
Euphrates Valley would ultimately absorb the traffic
and commerce, not only of North and Eastern Syria,
47
but of all Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Chaldaea, and
also of the countries beyond the Tigris, and of many
parts of Persia.
Mr. Thomas K. Lynch, the next examined, made
particular allusion to a proposed Russian route through
the Caucasus, and by the Caspian Sea to Teheran and
Ispahan, and by Shiraz to Yezd and Kurrachi. As this
line is said to be already completed as far as Rostov,
north of the Sea of Azov, it may possibly be carried out
with the progress of time. If so, however objection-
able it may be in a strategetical point of view, it would,
in the absence of any other line, be certainly used by
wayfarers to and from India, and it would carry the
commerce of the East to, or through, Russia. § VT
The next line to which Mr. Lynch called attention,
and which he pronounced to be “the Overland Route
to India, the very best for England to take up, if
money is no object,” would go from Constantinople to
Amasia, Sivas, and to a place called Arabkir on the
Euphrates. “It is,” Mr. Lynch continued, “between
Sivas and Arabkir that the first difficulties would occur,
where the anti-Taurus range of mountains is met with:
but Mr. Taylor has discovered, only the year before
last, a valley which passes through it, and offers no
difficulties whatsoever to the passage of a railway into
the plains beyond Moosh, along Lake Wan, Khoi,
Tabreez, and thence to Teheran,” where it would join
the Russian line to Kurrachi.
This project appears in its first portion scarcely to
have been adopted by a person intimate with details.
Amasia, at an elevation of eleven hundred and forty-
48
eight feet above the sea, is separated from the valley of
the Halys by hills rising to two thousand three hundred
and ninety-eight feet in height. The town itself is
situated in a narrow ravine, with limestone precipices
of nearly a thousand feet in elevation. A sketch of
the place, given as a frontispiece to W. J. Hamilton's
“Researches in Asia Minor,” &c., will best give an idea
of the very remarkable position of this town, with
the tombs of the kings on the face of its rocky preci-
pices. Why then go by Amasia to Sivas, when
there is an open road by the valley of the Halys
from Hajji Hamsah, on the high road to Constanti-
nople, to that place? A glance at the geological sec-
tions which are attached to Mr. Ainsworth’s “Researches
in Assyria,” &c., will show what the country is like
between Sivas and Arabkir. Sivas stands itself on a
plain three thousand eight hundred and ninety-four
feet above the level of the sea. The country rises
thence gradually to the Kara Bel mountains (ancient
Paryadres), five thousand seven hundred and ninety
feet. Thence it descends to cross over two lesser
mountain ranges, one four thousand two hundred and
fifty, the other four thousand four hundred and fifty,
to Divrigi, three thousand one hundred and sixteen
feet above the sea. Thence it ascends the rugged
Karsi mountains (five thousand six hundred and
seventy feet), descends to Berastik to re-ascend the
Ayeli mountain, and has another range to cross—
Arab-Baba—at an elevation of four thousand eight
hundred and eight feet before reaching Arabkir, at
an elevation of three thousand five hundred and
49
thirty feet. Arabkir is itself situated in a valley
between the last-mentioned range and the Gul Tagh,
having about the same elevation. At the head of the
valley are the basaltic mountains called Kara Baba, or
“the father of blackness.” A detailed description of
the country intervening between Sivas and Arabkir
will be found in “Res. in Assyria," p. 282 et seq., and
in “Travels in Asia Minor,” vol. ii. p. 5 et seq.
The discovery by Mr. Taylor of a valley passing
through this difficult country is a fact unquestionably
of the highest importance. As we have as yet had no
details, it is impossible to say anything for or against
its practicability. It is easy to imagine that the valley
of Arabkir may be prolonged on the other side of the
Euphrates, by the great plain of Moosh, or Mush, to
the Nimrod Tagh, but it is difficult to understand how
or where a valley can be prolonged from Sivas to
Arabkir. If such a valley exists, it is strange that it is
not used as the tatar road, or the post road and highway
between Dyarbekir and Malatiyah to Constantinople.
The permanency of roads (such as they are) in Asia
Minor and Syria, is one of the remarkable peculiarities
of the countries in question, and such a peculiarity is
owing to the physical conformation of the soil. In very
rare instances do the routes of the present day differ
from what they were in the time of the Greeks and the
Romans. Alexander the Great followed in the footsteps
of Cyrus the Younger, when he led his army by the
Kulak Boghaz to the pass of Bailan. The Ptolemies and
Seleucias—Vespasian, Sapor, Constantius, Heraclius—
the Khalifs, the Byzantine Emperors, the Sultans of
D
50
Turkey, the Crusaders, all in succession crossed the same
passes. A hundred examples might be adduced, founded
on the comparison of ancient sites and roads, as given
in the Antonine Itinerary and Theodosian tables, with
existing towns, villages, or ruins, of the permanency of
roads in the East. The writer crossed a narrow pass
in the limestone hills between the upper valley of the
Orontes and Edlip, where the track was so confined, that
horses' and mules' feet seemed to fall into the same
holes; indeed, it would have been dangerous had it
been otherwise. These holes were several inches, some-
times a foot, in depth; and this in limestone rock as
hard as marble, it must have taken ages of traffic to
bring about. It is difficult, then, to understand that
there should exist an open route from Sivas to Arabkir,
and that if should have remained unknown until the
year before last. Nothing but the trustworthy sources
whence the information is derived would induce one
to believe in the thing, which unquestionably must
exist in some form or other. The expenses of this line
from Constantinople to Ispahan is, it is to be observed,
estimated at twenty million pounds, against eight
million pounds, the rough estimate of the Euphrates
Valley route. -
The latter was noticed by Mr. Lynch as his third
alternative. He made the terminus the bay of Antioch,
not Alexandretta, and carrying it by Aleppo to the
Euphrates (why Birijik or Bir is introduced is not
quite clear), he would leave the river at Jaber Castle,
whence the railway “would form a segment with the
Euphrates, and proceed direct across the plain to Deir,
51
skirting thereby the ruins of Resafa, which is not far
from Palmyra; then along the fine lower table-land
which runs at the foot of a line of hills which skirt the
desert to Rahabah, on the Euphrates.”
A first objection to a route as thus proposed is that,
although there may be a little saving in distance by
thus crossing segments of the interior, instead of merely
crossing bends of the river, by carrying the line in the
interior you remove it, especially during construction,
away from the first of all necessities in such a climate
—water. In the second place, if there ever existed the
slightest danger from wandering Arabs, these would be
more likely to manifest themselves the further you get
from the settled banks of the river; and lastly, you
take away one of the great objects of the railway, the
future settlement of the valley of the Euphrates.
Resafa, the Resapha of the “Notitia Imperii,” and
probably the Rezeph of 2 Kings, xix, 12, and Isaiah,
xxxvii. 12, and subsequently called Sergiopolis, is a
well-known site on the high road from Tadmor to
Tiphsah, or, in a later language, from Palmyra to
Thapsacus, when the Romans constructed the strata or
causeway which traversed the Barbaricus Campus, or
plain of Siffin, so celebrated for the sanguinary combats
fought there between Ali and Moawiyah. By carrying
the railway across this plain, the easterly bend of the
river from Sura to Rakka—the favourite abode of
Harun-ar-Rashid—would be in part saved, but the old
commercial route, which from Rakkah followed the
Basileus or Bilecha river to Seruj, Haran, and Urfah,
and which would be brought to life again by the
D 2
52
railway passing nigh Thapsacus and Rakkah, would be
very probably put into jeopardy for the sake of a few
miles. Few sites of greater interest by their past his-
tory, or of greater importance as capable of once more
constituting centres of population, cultivation, and
commerce, than Sura, Thapsacus, and Rakkah, present
themselves along the whole line of the Euphrates
Valley, and to lose all these advantages for the sake of
saving a few miles across the stony plain of Siffin and
by the ruinous Resafa, does not appear judicious.
Rakkah—ancient Callinicum, Dakia, or Chalne of Ben-
jamin of Tudela—would, from its position at the
mouth of the old “Royal River” of Mesopotamia, near
the ſord of Thapsacus, on the highway from Urfah,
Harran, and Seruj to Palmyra and Damascus, and in a
fertile district, in all probability become as populous
and flourishing a city, with a railway close by, as in
the times of Harun-ar-Rashid and Al-Mamun. Tiphsah,
the extremity of Solomon's kingdom, was also, as
Thapsacus, “a great and wealthy town” (Xenoph.
“Anab,” i. 4; “Arrian Exped. Alex,” iii., 17). Sura
also, to judge by the extent of its remains, must have
been a large place. It was a Roman garrison of some
importance under Belisarius, but was taken and burnt
by Chosroes I. (A.D. 532). It was afterwards fortified
by Order of Justinian, and was an episcopal see under
the Lower Empire (Procopius, “Bell. Persic,” i. 18;
ii. 5; “De GEdificiis Justiniani,” ii. 9). Pliny cor-
rectly describes its position under the name of Ura, as
at the point where the Euphrates turns to the East from
the deserts of Palmyra (v. 24, s. 87). It is very question-
53
able if Sura was not the city, and Tiphsah, “the
passing over,” afterwards Thapsacus, the ford or bridge
Over the river. The ruins at Phumsah, as the latter
place is now called, are very insignificant compared
to the extent of mounds at Sura, and it is scarcely
likely that there would have been two cities of
importance on the same bank of the Euphrates at
such a short distance from one another. The objection
to this would be that Pliny notices both Ura and
Thapsacus (nunc Amphipholis), and that Ptolemy also
distinguishes the two, but the pass or bridge may have
always been distinguished from the city. The Syrians
called Thapsacus “Turmida,” and the “Flavia firma
Sura” of Cellarius (“Not. Orb. Antiq.,” ii. 367), from
the “Notitia Imperii Orientales,” should, according to
Mannert, be read “Flavia Turina Sura.” There is an
obvious connexion between Turmida and Turina.
But to turn from this digression to Mr. Lynch's pro-
posed deviation at the easterly bend of the Euphrates
to Resafa, and “then along the fine lower table-land
which runs at the foot of a line of hills which skirt the
desert to Rahabah on the Euphrates.” It is difficult to
understand if a line along the banks of the Euphrates
is meant, or a line in the interior. The basaltic range
of the Jebel Bushir, or Abu Shahir, which cross from
Palmyra, north of Zenobia, to unite with the Jebel
Munkbar and Abd-ul-Assiz hills in Mesopotamia, lie
between the two points, and afford no level passage.
save by the banks of the river.” But Mr. Lynch says
* In the intervening space between Rakkah and Zenobia, the most mo-
notonous portion of the river, and some sixty-four and a half miles in distance,
54
“direct across the plain to Deir,” which latter place is
beyond the basaltic hills, and then along “a lower
table-land to Rahabah." It is to be observed upon this
that the distance from Zenobia to Deir is by the river
thirty-eight miles; the distance from Deir to the Khabur
is twenty-two miles, “the country a nearly uniform and
level plain.” (“Res.” p. 73). Seven miles beyond is
the town and plain of Mayadin, with the old castle of
Rehoboth-ha-Nahar, or “of the river” (Gen. xxxvi. 37),
now called Rahabah-al-Hamra, or the “Red,” and it is
difficult to see what can be gained by leaving the banks
of the river, except at the limestone and gypsum cliffs
of Salahiyah, or Rahabah-al-Malik, twenty-one miles
lower down than Rahabah-al-Hamra, where possibly a
slight deviation may be less expensive than a tunnel,
but that is questionable.
The railway, then, according to Mr. T. K. Lynch,
would follow the course of the river (that is, we sup-
pose, from Rahabah-al-Hamra, or Rahabah-al-Malik),
“passing Anah to Haditha, on the Euphrates. At
Haditha it would cross Mesopotamia to Dokhala, on the
Tigris, nine hours above Baghdad. This latter place is,
we are told, in steam communication with India. By
going to Dokhala you escape all the rivers and canals in
the vicity of Baghdad.”
The suggestion is well meant, and if the line was car-
ried across the Tigris at Dokhala, it would have firm
and level land to Baghdad. (This city is, it is to be
there were two hawi, four forests, or groves of poplar, two Sandy points, five
tracts of graminae, or pasture, with villages, twelve marshy districts, chiefly
about Abu Said, twelve cultivated spots, four quarters of low jungle, eight
tracts of artemisia (wormwood), and twenty-seven of tamarix. (Res., &c., p. 70.)
55
<3
observed, generally spelt Bagdad in the evidence, but
the word is Bagh, “the garden,” of Dad, a deity or
idol). But from Haditha, or Hadisa, the rails would
have to be carried over a low, hilly, and stony country
to near the Tigris; whereas below the Pylae, or Gates
of Babylonia—the Gates of Paradise of the Talmuds
(Neubauer. “Geo. du Talmud,” p. 327)—the plain is a
flat and level alluvium. The marshes around Akka
Kuf unquestionably present a serious obstacle to a direct
line from Felujah, at the head of the plain, to Baghdad;
but a line could assuredly be found north of the Sakla-
wiyah Canal, or between it and the Abu Gharrib, or
Ghuraib, without bridges having to be constructed.
This, however, is a matter of detail which would have
to be decided by the engineers when carrying out a
survey preliminary to the positive laying down of the
rails. t
Mr. T. K. Lynch explained that the proposed line
would go from Dokhala to Mendali, on the Persian and
Turkish frontier, thence to Disful. “From Baghdad,”
he observed, “it is very practicable to get to Ispahan,
and to follow the other route to India, or to proceed
along the northern shore of the Persian Gulf by Mikran
to India. This, strategically, would be the best line for
the English government to undertake.”
The termini would be, according to Mr. Lynch, in
reply to further questions, Kurrachi on one side, and
Suwaidiyah, or Seleucia, on the other. In explanation
also of the proposed line to Ispahan, Mr. Lynch said:
“I think that if the English government guarantee a
line in this country, they ought to leave out of question
56
t
those lines which eventually must be made by commerce,
for instance, to Mosul, Dyarbekir, and Teheran ; all
those lines must fall in, and must join the main trunk
line. Mosul is only one hundred and sixty miles from
this very line, and therefore a tramroad or railroad
would very soon be made, and they would all be feeders
of the direct line.”
This is a view of the question before insisted upon,
and of the utmost importance to be kept in sight.
|Mosul, or Moosul, could be brought into connexion with
the main trunk line either by the valley of the Khabur,
as before noticed, or by the valley of the Tigris. For
goods going to Aleppo or Europe there would be great
saving of distance by the first line; the latter would
best serve the purposes of Baghdad. At all events, till
the lines suggested are carried out, which is as yet a
remote thing, the usual caravan trade would find its
way from Mosul by Bir to Aleppo, or by the Sinjar to
Rakkah, or by the Tigris to Baghdad, according to the
objects proposed to themselves by the merchants. Mr.
Lynch did not think that the funds could be got even
for the main trunk line without a guarantee from the
British government. The Russian line would, Mr.
Lynch also pointed out, be constructed on guarantees
from the Russian government, and it might be added
that at the present price of guaranteed Russian stock in
the money market, there is nothing to prevent that
government carrying a railway in any direction it might
elect to India, thus turning the trade and transit of the
East to their own country. The money would always
be forthcoming upon a Russian government guarantee,
57
a little below par at five per cent., at par at six per cent.
This is a consideration worthy of being meditated upon
by the British government. Is it precisely worth while,
is a fair question to ask, by refusing a guarantee, or
declining to enter into a joint guarantee with Turkey,
to allow the transit and trade of the East to be mono-
polised by Russia, and the future tenure of our vast i
Indian possessions to be jeopardised ? #,
The line from Constantinople by Sivas, Arabkir, Van,
and Tabreez to Teheran is, Mr. Lynch tells us, much
favoured by the Turkish and Persian governments
(Answ. 696), and it “would certainly, commercially
speaking, be a paying line” (Answ. 700). “It would
monopolise the whole of the Persian trade which now
goes by Poli and Trebizond.” But so also would the
line by the Euphrates Valley, Baghdad, and Disful to
Bushire. This would be still more the case if a branch
line could be carried across at the most available point
in the great mountain range which separates Persia
from Turkey, and which becomes more and more prac.
ticable the further it trends to the south.
Mr. Lynch bore further testimony to the increase of
the trade of Baghdad, which, he says, has quadrupled
within the last ten years, and may be estimated at about
one million sterling a year. With only a mountain
road, it supplies the markets of Kirmanshah and Hama-
dan, and goods sometimes reach as far as Ispahan and
Central Persia. Mr. Lynch, who was opposed to Bus-
Sorah as a terminus, was in favour of Suwaidiyah as a
port of debarkation on the Mediterranean. “I have
been twice over the Bailan Pass,” he said, “but still I
58
| would carry the route by the Orontes, as being the most
feasible.” Upon the subject of the Euphrates Valley
route, in reply to the question, “I apprehend that in
your opinion the effect of a railway along that country
would be to make a population settle there?” Mr. Lynch
replied: “I think that a railway along that line would
not be practicable, were it not attended by colonies
along the lines. The country is magnificent, and it only
requires to be opened by railway communication. I
look,” added Mr. Lynch,” “upon the establishment of a
railway in those countries as the commencement of a
|
kingdom. Railways, as we know, bring security with
them, and when you get security you get an increasing
| population, and when you get population you get pro-
ſ duction, and the country itself is a mine of wealth, as
far as agricultural and arableland is concerned.” Then,
again, in reply to a question from Mr. T. Brassey: “Is
the country through which the railway would pass at
all adapted for occupation by European settlers?”—“As
| far as the Persian frontier and between Baghdad and
Seleucia, certainly. It enjoys a magnificent climate at
all times of the year.” * -
The following was also very important evidence with
regard to the trade of the country:
787. (Sir Stafford Northcote.) “What business ex-
perience have you? You say that you are engaged in
business. With what portions of the trade of Baghdad
are you acquainted?”—“We first opened a direct trade
with the Persian Gulf. We sent sailing ships to Bus-
sorah, and when we found that the Indian government
no longer intended to run steamers on the Euphrates,
59
we organised a company to run steamers on the Tigris
as far as Baghdad, and now we have a postal subsidy
from the English government to carry the mails from
Bussorah to Baghdad; and all the traffic between Bus-
sorah and Baghdad, until very lately, was carried by
our steamers.” - - &
788. “Is it an increasing trade, or a stationary trade?” .
—“When we first established trade on the Euphrates,
we put on one steamer, and thought that that would be
sufficient. Afterwards we were obliged to put on another,
and since that time the Turkish local government have
put on four, and I believe that they will all have suf.
ficient to do.”
789. “Has the traffic been at all affected by the open-
ing of the Suez Canal?”—“I think that it has been
rather increased.”
Sir John Macneil, in his evidence before the com-
mittee, explained that the reason that he had at first
given a preference to the port of Suwaidiyah was,
because the ascent of the hill up the Bailan Pass was so
steep that, at that period, the power of the locomotive
engine not being at all so well developed as it is now,
the incline could not practically be overcome. Another
reason was, that from the necessity of making some ex-
cavations, and some deep cuttings, he thought it unad-
visable to take that route; and that the harbour of
Suwaidiyah might be so arranged as that it would be
made a very commodious fort as well as a harbour; and
the Turkish government were themselves at the time
anxious to lay out their own money in making that
harbour. But since that time Mr. Telford Macneil ex'
60 .
ſ amined the Bailan Pass a second time, and from the
| facts which are now known as to the mode of ascending
! steep inclines, with very unfavourable gradients, such
as one in thirteen, and one in fourteen, and one in
; seventeen, that is now practicable which was before con-
sidered totally impracticable.
There was, it has been shown, much difference of
opinion upon the site of the terminus on the Persian
Gulf; some advocating Kurnah, at the junction of the
Euphrates and Tigris rivers; others Bussorah (properly
Basrah), or a point near to it, on the Shat el Arab–the
estuary of the Euphrates and Tigris; others Muham-
mara, at the junction of the river Karun with the Shat
el Arab ; and others, again, Grain or Koweit, on the
Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, or Bushire (properly
| Abū Shahir, “father city”), on the Persian side of the
. same gulf.
It must be premised, in discussing this particular
part of the inquiry, that the mouth of the Euphrates and
Tigris is, like that of most other large rivers, more or less
a delta. The two rivers unite at Kurnah amid extensive
marshes. Some of these marshes are permanent, others
temporary, and some are the result of occasional inun-
dations. These, from peculiar circumstances, extend
further to the west, on the right bank of the Euphrates,
than they do to the eastwards, on the left bank of the
Tigris. Between the two rivers, near their junction, is
one extensive permanent marsh. The river Euphrates
is in places restrained by an artificial embankment, but
this sometimes gives way, entailing the inundation of
61
all the country beyond, especially near Bussorah. The
most extensive marshes to the east are formed by the
Hawisa tributary to the Tigris. Mr. Loftus has de-
picted the westerly marshes in his “Travels in
Chaldaea,” &c. The marshes of the central distries
have been described in “Res. in Assyria,” &c., p. 108)
et seq. These marshes, albeit not continuous, are very
extensive. Mr. Lynch is not far wrong when he said in
his evidence (No. 762) that he supposes there are thou-
sands of square miles of marsh on the lower parts of
the Euphrates and Tigris. Yet Mr. Lynch, who dwells
with emphasis upon the extent of these marshes, the
inundations around Baghdad, and the intolerable
nuisance of the Benelaum fly, goes so far as to admit
that, although there are great engineering difficulties
to be met with, it would be practicable to carry a line
of railway by taking it right down between the two
rivers on an embankment. Nothing, as before said, is
impracticable. It is a mere question of expense. Such
an undertaking would involve the expenditure of a
vast sum of money, and that apparently needlessly.
The same thing may be said with respect to Mr. Telford
Macneil's project of carrying the line from Baghdad,
across on the right bank of the river Tigris, down to
Kurnah (No. 415), and then crossing the Euphrates
“before the junction of the two rivers” (No. 418).
Kurnah consists in reality of a few Arab huts scattered
around an old fort, buried in date-trees, and standing
out from boundless marshy tracts. A moment's con-
templation of its position at any season of the year
62
i
would satisfy the most superficial observer as to its
little adaptation in a sanitary, or any other point of
view, to be a terminus for a great railway.
The next point advocated was Bussorah. The old
city is itself, it is to be observed, situated at a short dis-
tance from the Shat el Arab, upon a canal, and General
Chesney was careful in explaining that the terminus
would be near Bussorah, “just below Bussorah”
(No. 69), where the river is very deep, and the em-
bankment—a long line of palm groves—solid. The
advantages to be gained by selecting Bussorah are,
that it would save over a hundred miles of railway to
Grain or Bushire, and that the terminus would be in
the Sultan's territories, which is not the case at Muham-
mara or Bushire. But if the railway were prolonged
to Bussorah, it would either require to be kept along
the right bank of the Euphrates, with a branch to
Baghdad, or if taken to Baghdad, it would have to be
taken across the Euphrates again, and thence to be
carried round the extensive marshes to the west de-
picted in Mr. Loftus's map.
Sir Henry Rawlinson and Mr. Telford Macneil both
advocated Grain, or Koweit, as a terminus for the
Euphrates Valley Railway. This is, indeed, a fine,
deep, yet open and healthy bay and roadstead, with a
small Arab town inhabited by a well-disposed trading
community, but hot and treeless. An objection would
present itself to this proposed prolongation of the line
in the additional expense to be incurred, but this is
represented by many as an advantage, by saving the
loss of time entailed by a long sea journey. A more
63
serious objection presents itself, in the fact that a line
to Grain would, like one to Bussorah, require to be
carried to the west of the Euphrates, or back again
from Baghdad in that direction. In other respects
there are no formidable engineering difficulties to the
proposed terminus, and it would be within the Sultan's
territories. Sir Henry Rawlinson (No. 7) preferred
Grain on account of sanitary considerations, and it
certainly would be infinitely preferable on that account
to Kurnah, Bussorah, or Muhammara, but not to
Bushire.
Captain Charlewood expressed a preference for Mu- \
hammara as a terminus. This is, indeed, unques-
tionably the best port on the Shat el Arab. It is
situated at the junction of the river Karun, the banks
are tolerably high, and when not occupied by huts,
houses, or forts, are clad with date-trees. Unfor-
tunately the occupation of this spot, so favoured by
nature, has long been a bone of contention between
the Turkish and Persian governments. (Fontanier's
“Egypt, India, and the Persian Gulf.”) And to under-
stand how easily it could be made defensible, it merely
requires to peruse Captain Hunt's account of Outram
and Havelock's Persian campaign, when the place was
assaulted by a British force. .
Muhammara is situated in other respects in a marshy
spot, and cannot be considered as favourable to settle-
ment by Europeans, or as a healthy place; but Captain
Charlewood is perfectly right in saying (No. 630) that
a railway could be carried there by passing to the
eastward of the marshes. The ground rises to the east-
64
ward almost immediately beyond Muhammara, going
up the Karun, but the railway would have to pass still
further eastward, in proceeding to the north, to turn
the marshes of Hawisa. The reason why Muhammara
was not previously suggested, was because it was a
Persian port, and any firman of concession made by
the Turkish government would have to be completed
by the government of the Shah, making in fact two
different treaties of it. The Persian government has,
however, shown itself of late so anxious to have the
benefits brought about by railway communication in-
troduced into their country, that probably no great
difficulties would be met with in coming to an under-
; standing upon this point. There can be no question,
; however, that if the line is to include any portion of
l Persian territory, the best terminus would be Bushire,
# on the Persian Gulf, as proposed by Mr. Lynch and Sir
John Macneil.
In the first place, the line would not have to return
from Baghdad to the Euphrates. In the second, from
Baghdad to Bushire by Susiana, no marshes have to be
encountered. The ground is, for the most part, level
and firm. There would be some rivers to cross—a
mere matter of expense—but, on the other hand, the
line would be carried through one of the most fertile
provinces of Persia, and one of the most ancient
centres of population and civilisation in the country—
Disful and Shuster still uphold, with a rather sleepy
dignity, the importance of what was once “Shushan
the palace,” and of Susa which lay
by Choaspes’ amber stream,
The drink of none but kings.
65
The plains once dotted by fire-temples, the wealth of
which tempted the rapacity of the Macedonian kings,
exist, and are still in part populated and cultivated,
and, with the exception of occasional barren tracts,
villages, water, and cultivation are met with all the
way by Bebehan to Bushire. Bushire is also as good
a port as Grain, nor would the expenses of making a
landing jetty be greater than elsewhere (except, per-
haps, at Muhammara, where the goods could be landed
on a wooden quay), the town is civilised and accus-
tomed to Europeans, and as the port of Shiraz to
European commerce. Above all, were it ever deemed
possible to carry on the line by the littoral to Kurrachi,
Bushire would be so much gain on the direct road.
A letter has been recently printed by Mr. Edwyn
S. Dawes, written at the desire of his Excellency Moshin
Khan, advocating a line of railway from Muhammara
by the Karun to Shuster, and thence to Ispahan and
Teheran, or to begin with light-draughted river steamers
as far as Shuster. The only objection to the latter is
the existence of rocks and a bund or dam at Ahwaz, of
which there is a good drawing in Captain Hunt's little ;
º
!
book. The Euphrates steamer could not get over this
obstacle; Captain Campbell succeeded in carrying a
steamer over at an after period, but it could not be
expected to be available at all seasons of the year.
But if the Euphrates Valley Railway was prolonged
from Baghdad to Bushire by Disful and Shuster, such
a railway would answer all the purposes at first sought
for by the Persian government. It would open the
whole of the Persian provinces of Khuzistan, Luristan,
E
66
l
.
and Arabistan, with a Persian port on the gulf at
Bushire, and with Baghdad and Europe by the railway.
As to a future prolongation to Ispahan, it is easier
put on paper than carried into execution. Mesopo-
tamia is, as is well known to travellers, separated from
the Persian uplands by a chain of mountains of most
difficult access. This is a question that demands a
great deal of study before a definite opinion can be
arrived at. Baron de Bode, in his “Travels in Luristan
and Arabistan,” described several roads till then un-
known; one by the so-called “Solomon's cleft,” which
he supposed to be the “Ladder-road” of Diodorus
Siculus, and which leads from Shuster by Kumisheh
to Ispahan. A line from Ispahan to Shiraz would
also lead by Kumisheh, and whether the line from
Bushire to Shiraz (a geological section of which is
in the “Res, in Assyria,” &c.) includes the Klimakes
of Alexander's historians or not, it seems very probable
that, considering the friable nature of the rocks, the
little elevation of the rock terraces, and the possibility
of doubling them in places by following the more
devious course of transverse valleys, or tunnelling
where precipitous, that a branch line from Bushire to
Shiraz will eventually prove to be the most feasible,
and to best serve the interests of Persia, by opening a
highway to Central Persia.”
Mr. Dawes, it is to be observed, does not advocate an
* As such a line would also leave the main trunk line at the head of the
Dushistan, or low level littoral plain, somewhere near Dalaki, a considerable
saving would be effected in the distance between Bushire and Shiraz,
67
expensive railway, whereby to open Persia to inter.
communication and commerce, but rather a light line
of railway, say of three feet gauge, as in the case of the
Great American Pacific Railway, and such a railway,
it might be added, ought surely to suffice for the
Euphrates Valley route also.
There séems, however, to be some difference of
opinion among the engineers as to the gauge of the
proposed railway. Sir John Macneil advocated a gauge
of three feet; Mr. Telford Macneil one of four feet
eight inches, or four feet eight and a half inches;
and Mr. John Maxwell an Indian gauge of five feet
six inches. The question involves the matter of speed
and expense. As great a speed, consistent with safety,
cannot be got out of a narrow gauge as out of a wide
one. But, while a three feet gauge could be con-
structed to the Persian Gulf for about 6,500,000l.,
including five per cent. to pay shareholders' interest for
their money during the progress of the works, it would
cost 8,100,000l. by a four feet eight or eight and a
half inch gauge, an d400,000l. more by a five feet six
inch gauge. - .
Sir John Macneil's description of the kind of car-
riages he would construct for the transit from the Medi-
terranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, reads like an extract
from the “Arabian Nights' Entertainments.” “With
the three feet gauge,” said this eminent engineer, “the
carriages would be so low, the wheels not exceeding
eighteen or twenty inches, that no platforms would be
required, and no steps to the carriages, or anything of
2
68
that kind ; the carriages would be quite available from
the ground; there would be only nine or ten inches,
and they would be so convenient for travelling in the
way in which I propose to make them, that the pas-
sengers would probably sit at the side as they do in the
common omnibuses of London, but with a much wider
passage between them, perhaps more than double the
width which there is in the London omnibuses. Then
the carriages might be of considerable length, resting at
each end on bogie platforms, so that there would be no
bumping or jolting against the sides, or anything of
that kind; they would be perfectly smooth, and having
a passage right through, as they have on some of the
Austrian railways, a passenger could walk from end to
end of the train, and could get refreshment at night
without going into the station, and the carriages could
be constructed so as to be made almost uniform and
perfect as to temperature.” Elsewhere, alluding to
carriages for troops, Sir John Macneil said he would
have them so constructed that the troops “could get
into their places with their knapsacks and their rifles,
and might in five minutes be accommodated, so as to
jump up on the carriage and be quite secure and safe.”
He would also propose to have the carriages “so that
they would be perfectly ventilated; they would be uni-
form in temperature night and day, and in warm and
cold weather just the same; there would be no difficulty
or expense in doing it.” (Answ. 840.)
It is obvious that with such a line of railway we
should have, in addition to the local traffic and the
69
transit service, no end of adventurous tourists wending
their way to the far East, besides persons of a specu-
lative turn of mind, who would wish to have ocular tes-
timony of the advantages of the country for agriculture,
settlement, or even building purposes. We should not
only have Cook's excursions to the ruins of Babylon
and the City of the Khalifs, but we should also have
charming villas springing up at Antioch, at Balis, at
Rakkah, at Zenobia, at Anah, and at other choice
spots.
Mr. Telford Macneil and Mr. John Maxwell have un-
questionably been guided in their opposition to this
scheme by high conscientious motives, more particularly
in regard to speed and safety; but it is also possible
that they may have been a great deal influenced by
considerations connected with the difficulties which they
placed in their own way at starting, by selecting a line
with a mountain pass over two thousand feet in eleva-
tion. If a line of railway such as Sir John Macneil
proposes could be carried along the valley of Antioch to
the Persian Gulf at an expense of some 6,500,000l.,
including five per cent, to pay shareholders' interest on
their money during the progress of the works, the
scheme recommends itself to the money market upon
its own and sole merits. But a government cannot be
said to be alive to the true interests of the British
empire that would spend over eight millions in order
to rescue a few British prisoners and humble a half.
civilised Abyssinian potentate, and yet decline to do
something in aid of a project to unite Great Britain
7()
with its Indian possessions. A war also involving vast
expenditure and great loss of life was inaugurated
simply to prevent Russia encroaching upon Turkey;
yet is it difficult to get those in authority to counte-
nance a peaceful project, which would do more than the
Crimean war ever did to give security to our Indian
empire, would facilitate commerce and communication,
add to the welfare and prosperity of the two countries,
and open other regions to a participation in the advan-
tages of civilisation and well-being.
THE END.
I,ONDON
c. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, DUKH STREET, LINCOLN's-INN-FIHLDS.
©
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