DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15174#0021
CHAP. XII.
the river oxus.
5
tulations on his bravery : this individual turned out,
in the end, one of our best friends.
We found the stream of the Oxus with a breadth
of 650 yards, and in some places 25 and 29 feet
deep ; so that it was both narrower and deeper than
at the point at which we had before crossed it. Its
banks were much depressed, and completely over-
grown with a rank weed, which chokes the aque-
ducts. Some fish of an enormous size, weighing
from five to six hundred pounds, are procured in
this river, a kind of dog-fish, which are used as food
by the Uzbeks. Across the Oxus, we found our-
selves about six miles distant from the town of
Charjooee, which was in sight. For the first time,
this noble river was turned to the purposes of navi-
gation, since there is a commercial communication
kept up, by means of it, between that place and
Orgunje.
The Oxus is particularly mentioned under that
name by the historians of Alexander, though it ap-
pears to have been ever unknown by such a title to
the Asiatics, who call it Jihoon and Amoo. We
learn from the ancient authors, that Alexander ap-
proached this river from Bactra, or Balkh, by a
country " which exhaled the power of a summer
sun and torrified the sands." The distance between
Bactra and the river is even correctly stated at 400
stadia, and we have no fables regarding the breadth
of the river. Arrian, who follows Aristobulus, tells
us that the Oxus was six furlongs broad, and in
that part of its course we have described it with a
b 3
the river oxus.
5
tulations on his bravery : this individual turned out,
in the end, one of our best friends.
We found the stream of the Oxus with a breadth
of 650 yards, and in some places 25 and 29 feet
deep ; so that it was both narrower and deeper than
at the point at which we had before crossed it. Its
banks were much depressed, and completely over-
grown with a rank weed, which chokes the aque-
ducts. Some fish of an enormous size, weighing
from five to six hundred pounds, are procured in
this river, a kind of dog-fish, which are used as food
by the Uzbeks. Across the Oxus, we found our-
selves about six miles distant from the town of
Charjooee, which was in sight. For the first time,
this noble river was turned to the purposes of navi-
gation, since there is a commercial communication
kept up, by means of it, between that place and
Orgunje.
The Oxus is particularly mentioned under that
name by the historians of Alexander, though it ap-
pears to have been ever unknown by such a title to
the Asiatics, who call it Jihoon and Amoo. We
learn from the ancient authors, that Alexander ap-
proached this river from Bactra, or Balkh, by a
country " which exhaled the power of a summer
sun and torrified the sands." The distance between
Bactra and the river is even correctly stated at 400
stadia, and we have no fables regarding the breadth
of the river. Arrian, who follows Aristobulus, tells
us that the Oxus was six furlongs broad, and in
that part of its course we have described it with a
b 3