Teherān-Meshed line (555 m.), however, is looked after by an
English inspector and two English clerks at Meshed, and since
1885 the Indian government has allowed a sum not exceeding
20,000 rupees per annum for its maintenance; and the Meshed-Seistan
line, 523 m., is looked after by twelve Russian inspectors
and clerks. The Persian lines are farmed out for 1,800,000 krans
(about £36,000) per annum and no statistics are published. There
are in all 131 stations. Statistics of the traffic on the Indo-European
line are given in the administration reports of the Indo-European
telegraph department, published by government, and from them
the figures in the following table have been obtained:—
| Year | Traffic over Lines between London and Karachi |
Earnings in thousands of Pounds |
Net Profits of the Government Dept. | ||
| Number of Messages transmitted |
Government Department |
Indo-European Telegraph Co. |
Total amount Rupees |
Percentage on Capital Outlay | |
| 1887–1888 | 83,031 | 74 | 100 | 198,381 | 1·75 |
| 1892–1893 | 117,500 | 84 | 116 | 437,668 | 3·80 |
| 1897–1898 | 146,988 | 106 | 145 | 758,172 | 6·57 |
| 1902–1903 | 178,250 | 111 | 155 | 589,571 | 4·50 |
| 1905–1906 | 211,003 | 113 | 157 | 774,368 | 5·39 |
| 1906–1907 | 259,355 | 108 | 149 | 458,559 | 3·09 |
Manufactures, &c.—The handbook on Persian art published by Colonel Murdoch Smith, R.E., in 1876, with reference to the collection purchased and sent home by him for the Victoria and Albert Museum, has an instructive account of the more common manufactures of the country. They are classified under the respective heads of “porcelain and earthenware,” “tiles,” “arms and armour,” “textile fabrics,” “needlework and embroidery,” “metal-work,” “wood carving and mosaic-painting,” “manuscripts,” “enamel,” “jewelry” and “musical instruments.” Specimens of the greater number are not only to be procured in England, but are almost familiar to the ordinary Londoner. It need scarcely be said that tiles have rather increased in value than deteriorated in the eyes of the connoisseur, that the ornamentation of metal-work, wood carving and inlaying, gem and seal engraving, are exquisite of their kind, and that the carpets manufactured by skilled workmen, when left to themselves and their native patterns, are to a great extent unrivalled. Of the above-mentioned articles, carpets, shawls, woollen and cotton fabrics and silk stuffs are the more important. Carpets may be divided into three categories: (1) Kali, with a pile, and cut like plush; (2) gilim, smooth; (3) nimads, felts. Only the two first are exported. The Kali and its smaller sizes, called Kalicheh (in Europe, rugs), are chiefly made in Ferahan, Sultanabad (Irak), Khorasan, Kurdistan, Karadagh, Yezd, Kermān, and among the nomad tribes of southern Persia. From the two first-mentioned localities, where a British firm has been established for many years, great quantities, valued in some years at £100,000, find their way to European and American markets, while rugs to the value of £30,000 per annum are exported from the Persian Gulf ports. Of the second kind, gilim (used in Europe for curtains, hangings, and chair-covers), considerable quantities are exported from Shushter and Kurdistan. The value of the carpets exported during the year 1906–1907 was close upon £900,000, Turkey taking £613,300, Russia £196,700, United States £40,600, Great Britain £20,700, Egypt £18,500 and India £5400. Shawls are manufactured in Kermān and Meshed, and form an article of export, principally to Turkey. Woollen fabrics are manufactured in many districts, but are not exported in any great quantity. Coarse cotton stuffs, chiefly of the kind called Kerbaz, used in their natural colour, or dyed blue with indigo, are manufactured in all districts but not exported; cottons, called Kalamkar, which are made in Manchester and block-printed in colours at Isfahan and Kumishah, find their way to foreign markets, principally Russian. Of silk fabrics manufactured in Persia, principally in Khorasan, Kashan and Yezd, about £100,000 worth per annum is exported to Turkey, Russia and India. In the environs of Kashan and in Fars, chiefly at Maimand, much rose-water is made, and a considerable quantity of it is exported by way of Bushire to India and Java. Many attempts have been made to start manufactures, supported by foreign capital and conducted by foreigners, but nearly all have resulted in loss. In 1879 the Persian government was induced to spend £30,000 on the erection of a gas factory in Teherān, but work was soon stopped for want of good coal. A few years later a Persian bought the factory and plant for £10,000, and made them over in 1891 to the Compagnie générale pour l’éclairage et le hauffage en Perse, which after bringing out much additional plant, and wasting much capital in trying for some years in vain to make good and cheap gas out of bad and dear coal, closed the factory. In 1891 another Belgian company, Société anonyme des verreries nationales de Perse, opened a glass factory in Teherān, but the difficulty of obtaining the raw material cheaply and in large quantities was too great to make it a paying concern, and the factory had to be closed. A third Belgian company, Société anonyme pour la fabrication du sucre en Perse, with a large capital, then came to Persia, and began making beetroot sugar in the winter of 1895. But, like the gas and glass companies, it found the cost of the raw material and the incidental expenses too great, and ceased its operations in 1899. In 1890 a Russian company started a match factory near Teherān with an initial outlay, it is said, of about £20,000, but could not successfully compete with Austrian and Swedish matches and ceased operations very soon. A Persian gentleman erected a cotton-spinning factory at Teherān in 1894 with expensive machinery; it turned out some excellent yarn but could not compete in price with imported yarns.
Agricultural Products.—Wheat, barley and rice are grown in all districts, the two former up to considerable altitudes (8000 ft.), the last wherever the water supply is abundant, and in inner Persia generally along rivers; and all three are largely exported. The most important rice-growing districts which produce more than they require for local consumption and supply other districts, or export great quantities, are Astarabad, Mazandaran, Gilan, Veramin, (near Teherān). Lenjan (near Isfahan), and some localities in Fars and Azerbaijan. Peas, beans, lentils, ram, maize, millet, are also universally cultivated, and exported from the Persian Gulf ports to India and the Arabian coast. The export of rice amounted to 52,200 tons in 1906–1907, and was valued at £472,550. The Persian fruit is excellent and abundant, and large quantities, principally dried and called khushkbar (dry fruit), as quinces, peaches, apricots, plums (of several kinds), raisins, figs, almonds, pistachios, walnuts and dates (the last only from the south), as well as oranges (only from the Caspian provinces), are exported. The fruit exported during 1906–1907 had a value of £1,019,000. Nothing is being done to improve the vine, and the Persian wines, until recently of world-wide reputation, are yearly getting thinner and poorer. The phylloxera has done much damage. The naturalist S. G. Gmelin, who explored the southern shores of the Caspian in 1771, observed that the wines of Gilan were made from the wild grape. Cotton is largely grown, principally in the central districts and Khorasan, and some qualities are excellent and command high prices in the European markets; 18,400 tons of raw cotton, valued at £838,787, were exported to Russia in 1906–1907. Good hemp grows wild in Mazandaran. Tobacco of two kinds, one the tumbaku (Nicotiana persica, Lindl.), for water pipes, the other the tutun (Nicotiana rustica, L.), for ordinary pipes and cigarettes, is much cultivated. The tumbaku for export is chiefly produced in the central districts round about Isfahan and near Kashan, while the tumbaku of Shiraz, Fessa, and Darab in Fars, considered the best in Persia, is not much appreciated abroad. Tutun is cultivated in Azerbaijan, near Urmia and other places near the Turkish frontier, in Kurdistan, and, since 1875, in the district of Resht, in Gilan. About 1885 the quantity of tobacco exported amounted to between 4000 and 5000 tons. In 1906–1907 only 1820 tons, valued at £42,000, were exported. The cultivation of poppy for opium greatly increased after 1880, and it was estimated in 1900 that the annual produce of opium amounted to over 1000 tons, of which about two-fifths was consumed and smoked in the country. The principal opium-producing districts are those of Shiraz, Isfahan, Yezd, Kermān, Khorasan, Burujird and Kermānshāh. While the quantity consumed in the country is now probably the same, the quantity exported is much less: 239 tons, valued at £237,270 in 1906–1907. The value of the silk produced in Persia in the ’sixties was £1,000,000 per annum, and decreased in consequence of silk-worm disease to £30,000, in 1890. The quantity produced has since then steadily increased and its yearly value is estimated at half a million. Cocoons and raw silk valued at £316,140 were exported in 1906–1907. Of oil-yielding plants the castor-oil plant, sesame, linseed and olive are cultivated, the last only in a small district south of and near Resht. Very little oil is exported. The potato, not yet a staple article of food, tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, artichokes and other vegetables are now much more grown than formerly, chiefly in consequence of the great influx of Europeans, who are the principal consumers.
Among the valuable vegetable products forming articles of export are various gums and dyes, the most important being gum tragacanth, which exudes from the astragalus plant in the hilly region from Kurdistan in the north-west to Kermān in the south-east. Other gums are gum-ammoniac, as afetida, galbanum, sagapanum, sarcocolla and opoponax. In 1906–1907, 3310 tons of various gums of a value of £300,000 were exported. Of dye-stuffs there are produced henna (Lawsonia inermis) principally grown at Khabis near Kermān, woad and madder; a small quantity of indigo is grown near Dizful and Shushter. The export of dyes in 1906–1907 was 985 tons, valued at £32,326.
Horses, mules and donkeys, formerly exported in great numbers, are at present not very abundant, and their prices have risen much since 1880. Some nomad tribes who owned many brood mares, and yearly sold hundreds of horses, now hardly possess sufficient animals for their own requirements. The scarcity of animals, as well as the dearness of fodder, is one of the causes of the dearness of transport, and freights have risen on the most frequented roads from 3d. per ton-mile in 1880 to 10d., and even 13d., per ton-mile.
The prices of staple articles of food rose steadily from 1880 and
