First Grain of Sand — Page 182
166 FIRST GRAIN OF SAND I reached the British Ambassador's residence, with my visa paperwork in hand. I met him, and he told me his senior officer is the Senior Ambassador who is in Tehran. He told me to wait a day or two while he sends that Senior Ambassador a telegram request- ing guidance and then will do as he instructs. I said two years ago I went to Russia through Mashhad, where I left some valuables before proceeding to Russia. I asked if I can be sent through Mashhad on the way back home, but he said that route is different from how I would be taken back to India. He said the route I must take will be through Tehran to Baghdad, then Basra, and then Karachi [in present-day Pakistan]. Moscow U. S. S. R. Rostov-on-Don Mineralyne Vody Grozny Makhachkala Baku • Tashkent • Bukhara Ashgabat Mashhad. Tehran Anzali CASPIAN SEA KINGDOM OF IRAQ Baghdad KINGDOM OF AFGHANISTAN • Islamabad IRAN/PERSIA Qadian Lahore Amritsar Basra Multan, Bushehr BRITISH INDIA New Delhi Bandar Abbas Sukkur KINGDOM OF HEJAZ AND NEJD Gwadar Hyderabad Karachi Muscat ARABIAN SEA (INDIAN OCEAN) The most likely route taken by Maulawi Zahoor Hussain on his 1926 journey back from Moscow to Qadian, India, based on historical records of shipping routes and railway networks available in 1926