DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15174#0178
162
THE RIVER OXUS.
BOOK I.
joined by a variety of smaller streams from Koon-
dooz and Hissar, which have been'described by
Mr. Macartney. It winds among mountains, and,
approaching within twenty miles of the town of
Khoolloom, and much nearer than appears in our
maps, passes about half a degree to the north of
Balkh. There are no hills between it and that
ancient city, as have been represented. It here
enters upon the desert by a course nearly N.W.,
fertilizes a limited tract of about a mile on either
side, till it reaches the territories of Orgunje or
Khiva, the ancient Kharasm, where it is more
widely spread by art, and is then lost in the sea of
Aral. In the latter part of its course, so great is
the body of water drawn for the purposes of irri-
gation, and so numerous are the divisions of its
branches, that it forms a swampy delta, overgrown
with reeds and aquatic plants, impervious to the
husbandman, and incapable of being rendered useful
to man, from its unvarying humidity. I will not
permit the much-disputed subject of the Oxus
having terminated, at a former period, in the Cas-
pian instead of the Aral sea, to lead me into a di-
gression on that curious point. I have only to state,
after an investigation of the subject, and the tra-
ditions related to me, as well as much enquiry
among the people themselves, that I doubt the
Oxus having ever had any other than its present
course. There are physical obstacles, a range of
mountains, which prevent its entering the Caspian,
south of Balkhan, and north of that point: its more
natural receptacle, from the slope of the country
THE RIVER OXUS.
BOOK I.
joined by a variety of smaller streams from Koon-
dooz and Hissar, which have been'described by
Mr. Macartney. It winds among mountains, and,
approaching within twenty miles of the town of
Khoolloom, and much nearer than appears in our
maps, passes about half a degree to the north of
Balkh. There are no hills between it and that
ancient city, as have been represented. It here
enters upon the desert by a course nearly N.W.,
fertilizes a limited tract of about a mile on either
side, till it reaches the territories of Orgunje or
Khiva, the ancient Kharasm, where it is more
widely spread by art, and is then lost in the sea of
Aral. In the latter part of its course, so great is
the body of water drawn for the purposes of irri-
gation, and so numerous are the divisions of its
branches, that it forms a swampy delta, overgrown
with reeds and aquatic plants, impervious to the
husbandman, and incapable of being rendered useful
to man, from its unvarying humidity. I will not
permit the much-disputed subject of the Oxus
having terminated, at a former period, in the Cas-
pian instead of the Aral sea, to lead me into a di-
gression on that curious point. I have only to state,
after an investigation of the subject, and the tra-
ditions related to me, as well as much enquiry
among the people themselves, that I doubt the
Oxus having ever had any other than its present
course. There are physical obstacles, a range of
mountains, which prevent its entering the Caspian,
south of Balkhan, and north of that point: its more
natural receptacle, from the slope of the country