importance. The five exceptions are: (1) Resht-Kazvin-Teherān,
227 m; (2) Julfa-Tabriz, 80 m; (3) Teherān-Kum-Sultanabad,
160 m.; (4) Meshed-Kuchan-Askabad, 150 m.; 30 of which are on
Russian territory; (5) Isfahan-Ahvaz, 280 m. The first of these
roads consists of two sections: Resht-Kazvin, 135 m., and Kazvin-Teherān,
92 m. The first section was constructed in 1897–1899
by a Russian company, in virtue of a concession which the Persian
government granted in 1893; and the second section was constructed
in 1878–1879 by the Persian government at a cost of
about £20,000, ceded to the concessionaire of the first section in
1896, and repaired and partly reconstructed by the Russian company
in 1898–1899. Both sections were officially opened to traffic in
August 1899. The capital of the company is 3,200,000 roubles
(£341,330), of which 1,700,000 is in shares taken by the public, and
1,500,000 in debentures taken by the Russian government, which
also guarantees 5% on the shares. About two-thirds of the capital
has been expended on construction. The company’s income is
derived from tolls levied on vehicles and animals using the road.
These tolls were at first very high but were reduced by 15% in
1904, and by another 10% in 1909. If all the trade between Russia
and Teherān were to pass over this road, the tolls would no doubt
pay a fair dividend on the capital, but much of it goes by way of the
Teherān-Meshed-i-Sar route, which is much shorter and has no tolls.
The second road, Julfa-Tabriz, 80 m., was constructed by the
same Russian company in 1903. The third road, Teherān-Kum-Sultanabad,
160 m., also consists of two sections: the first, Teherān-Kum,
92 m., the other, Kum-Sultanabad, 68 m. The first section
was constructed by the Persian government in 1883 at a cost of
about £12,000, purchased by the Imperial Bank of Persia in 1890
for £10,000, and reconstructed at a cost of about £45,000. The
second section formed part of the “Ahvaz road concession” which
was obtained by the Imperial Bank of Persia in 1890 with the
object of connecting Teherān with Ahvaz on the Karun by a direct
cart road via Sultanabad, Burujird, Khorremabad (Luristan),
Dizful and Shushter. The concession was ceded to Messrs Lynch,
of London, “The Persian Road and Transport Company,” in 1903.
The fourth cart-road, Meshed-Askabad, 120 m. to the Persian
frontier, was constructed by the Persian government in 1889–1892
in accordance with art. v. of the Khorasan Boundary Convention
between Russia and Persia of December 1881. The Persian section
cost £13,000. The fifth road, Isfahan-Ahvaz, 280 m., is the old
mule track provided with some bridges, and improved by freeing
it of boulders and stones, &c., at a total cost of £5500. The concession
for this road was obtained in 1897 by the Bakhtiari chiefs and
ceded to Messrs Lynch, of London, who advanced the necessary
capital at 6% interest and later formed the Persian Road and
Transport Company. The road was opened for traffic in the
autumn of 1900. The revenue is derived from tolls levied on animals
passing with loads. The tolls collected in 1907 amounted to £3100.
Railways.—Persia possesses only 8 m. of railway and 612 m. of tramway, both worked by a Belgian company. The railway consists of a single line, one-metre gauge, from Teherān to Shah-abdul-Azim, south of Teherān, and of two branch lines which connect the main line with some limestone quarries in the hills south-east of the city. The tramway also is a single line of one-metre gauge, and runs through some of the principal streets of Teherān. The length of the main railway line is 512 m., that of the branches 212. The main line was opened in 1888, the branches were constructed in 1893, and the tramway started in 1889. The capital now invested in this enterprise, and largely subscribed for by Russian capitalists, amounts to £320,000. There are also ordinary shares to the amount of £200,000 put down in the company’s annual balance-sheets as of no value. The general opinion is that if Russian capitalists had not been interested in the enterprise the company would have liquidated long ago. (On railways in Persia, the many concessions granted by the Persian government, and only one having a result, ch. xviii. of Lord Curzon’s Persia [i. 613–639], and on the Belgian enterprise, Lorini’s La Persia economica [pp. 157–158] may be consulted.)
Posts.—Down to 1874 the postal system was in the hands of an official called chaparchi bashi, who was the head farmer of the post, or chapars, and letters and small parcels were conveyed by him and his agents at high and arbitrary rates and without any responsibility. The establishment of a regular post was one of the results of the shah Nasr-ed-din’s first visit to Europe (1873). Two officials of the Austrian postal department having been engaged in 1874, an experiment of a post office upon European lines was made in the following year with a postal delivery in the capital and some of the neighbouring villages where the European legations have their summer quarters. In the beginning of 1876 a regular weekly post was established between Teherān, Tabriz and Julfa (Russo-Persian frontier) and Resht. Other lines, connecting all the principal cities with the capital, were opened shortly afterwards, and on the 1st of September 1877 Persia joined the international postal union with the rates of 212d. per 12 oz. for letters, 1d. for post-cards, 12d. per 2 oz. for newspapers, &c., between Persia and any union country. The inland rates were a little less. There are now between Persia and foreign countries a bi-weekly service via Russia (Resht–Baku, Tabriz–Tiflis) and a weekly service via India (Bushire–Bombay). On the inland lines, with the exception of that between Teherān and Tabriz the service is weekly. There are reported to be 140 post offices. Statistics as to the number of letters, post-cards, newspapers, &c., conveyed are kept but not published; and since 1885, when a liberal-minded director communicated those for the year 1884–1885 to the present writer, no others, although many times promised, have been obtained. In the year 1884–1885 there were conveyed 1,368,835 letters, 2050 post-cards, 7455 samples, and 173,995 parcels, having a value of £304,720; and the receipts exceeded the expenditure by £466. Since then the traffic has much increased, and the excess of receipts over expenditure in the year 1898–1899 was reported to have been £10,000, but was probably more than that, for the minister of posts farmed the department for £12,000 per annum. The farm system was abolished in 1901 and in the following year the post office was joined to the customs department worked by Belgian officials. Under the most favourable conditions letters from London via Russia are delivered at Tabriz in 9 days, at Teherān in 10, at Isfahan in 14, and at Shiraz in 18 days; and via India, at Bushire in 26 days, at Shiraz in 31, at Isfahan in 36, and at Teherān in 40 days; but during the winter letters between London and Teherān sometimes take a month. In the interior the mails are conveyed on horseback, and, being packed in badly made soft leather bags, are frequently damaged through careless packing and wet. The first Persian postage stamps were issued in 1875 and roughly printed in Persia. Since then there have been numerous issues, many practically bogus ones for collectors. Authentic specimens of the early ones are much valued by stamp collectors. (For information on the postal system of Persia, see G. Riederer, Aus Persien, Vienna, 1882; Fr. Schueller, Die persische Post und die Postwerthzeichen von Persian, Vienna, 1893.)
Telegraphs.—The first line of telegraphs—from Teherān to Sultanieh, about 160 m. on the road to Tabriz—was constructed in 1859. In the following year it was continued to Tabriz, and in 1863 to Julfa on the Russian frontier. With the object of establishing a direct telegraphic communication between England and India, by connecting the European and Indian systems by a land line through Persia from Bagdad—then the most easterly Turkish telegraphic station—to Bushire and by a cable from Bushire eastwards, a telegraphic convention was concluded in the same year between the British and Persian governments, and a one-wire line on wooden posts from the Turkish frontier, near Bagdad, to Bushire via Kermānshāh, Hamadan, Teherān, Isfahan and Shiraz, was constructed at the cost and under the supervision of the British government. In 1865 a new convention, providing for a second wire, was concluded, and for some years messages between Europe and India were transmitted either via Constantinople, Bagdad, Teherān, Bushire, or via Russia, Tiflis, Tabriz, Teherān, Bushire. An alternative line between Bagdad and India was created by the construction of a land line to Fao, at the head of the Persian Gulf, and the laying of a cable thence to Bushire. The service was very inefficient, and messages between England and India took several days and sometimes weeks to reach their destination. In 1869 Messrs Siemens of Berlin, in virtue of concessions obtained in the year before and later disposed of to the Indo-European Telegraph Company, Ltd.—who also took over Reuter’s cable from Lowestoft to Emden (274 knots)—constructed a two-wire line on iron posts through Germany and Russia, and in Persia from Julfa to Teherān. This line was opened on the 31st of January 1870. The British government then handed the Bagdad-Teherān section, which had become unnecessary for international through traffic between Europe and India, over to the Persian government, and changed its Teherān-Bushire line into one of two wires on iron posts. In 1873, according to a convention signed December 1872, a third wire was added to the line, and there was then a three-wire line on iron posts (439 m. Indo-European Telegraph Company, 675 m. Indian government) from Julfa to Bushire. In August 1901 a convention was concluded between the British and Persian governments for a three-wire line on iron posts from Kashan (a station on the Teherān-Bushire line) to Baluchistan via Yezd, Kermān and Bam (805 m.). The construction of this “Central Persia line,” as it is known officially, was begun in December 1902 and completed in March 1907. The section Kashan-Isfahan of the old Teherān-Bushire was then taken up and Isafahan was connected with the Central Persia line by a two-wire line from Ardistan, 71 m. south-east from Kashan. One of the three wires between Isfahan and Bushire was also taken up, and there are now a five-wire line from Teheran to Ardistan (22412 m.), a three-wire line from Ardistan to the Baluchistan frontier (734 m.) and a two-wire line from Ardistan to Bushire (497 m.). These lines, as well as that of the Indo-European Telegraph Company from Julfa to Teherān, are worked throughout by an English staff and may be classed among the finest and most efficient in the world. The central line is continued through Baluchistan to Karachi, and from Bushire messages go by cable (laid in 1864) to Jask, and thence either by cable or by land to Karachi, Bombay, &c. The telegraphic convention between the British and Persian governments has again been renewed, and is in force until 1925; and the concessions to the company were prolonged to the same year by the Russian government in March 1900. In addition to these lines, Persia possesses 4191 m. of single-wire lines on wooden poles belonging to the Persian government and worked by a Persian staff; the
