Kala Khum the river is 480 ft. wide, narrowing to 350 ft. in the
narrowest gorge. Its level varies with the obstructions formed
by ice, falling as much as 28 ft. when its upper channels are
blocked.
The climate of eastern Bokhara and Darwaz is delightful in summer, and Dr Regel writes of its Alpine scenery and flora in terms Climate and Productions. of enthusiastic admiration. In the valleys of the Waksh and the Surkhab to the north of Darwaz, which form an important part of the province of Karategin, maple, ash, hawthorn, pistachio, and juniper grow freely in the mountain forests, and beetroot, kohl rabi, and other vegetables are widely cultivated. About the cliffs and precipices of the Panja valley near Kala Khum the wild vine, cerasus, and pomegranate are to be found, and the plane tree and mulberry flourish in groups near the villages. Here also, amongst other plants, the sunflower decorates village gardens. The houses are built of stone and mortar, and above the thatched straw roof which surmounts the double-storeyed buildings the square water-tower rises gracefully. Every house possesses its staircase, its well, and cisterns for irrigation; and on the whole the Aryan Tajiks of this northern section of the Oxus valley seem to be well provided with most of the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. Their language is the language of Bokhara and Samarkand. Bokharan supremacy was re-established in 1878, when Kala Khum was occupied by Bokharan troops. Since then the right bank of the river has been politically divided from the left, and the latter now belongs to Afghanistan.
From Kala Khum, which fort about marks the most northerly point of the great bend of the Oxus round Badakshan, the river follows a south-westerly course for another 50 m. through a close mountainous region ere it widens into the more open valley to the south of Kolab. It now becomes a river of the plains from which the mountains on either side stand back.
The topography of Darwaz south of the river is not accurately known, but at least one considerable stream of some 60 m. in length Darwaz Affluents. drains to the north-east, parallel to the general strike of the mountain system into the transverse course of the Oxus, which it joins nearly opposite to the lateral valleys of Yaz Ghulam and Wanj. This stream is called Pangi-Shiwa, or Shiwa, but not much is known about it. Another of about equal length, starting from the same central water-parting of this mountain block, and included within the Oxus bend, follows a transverse direction at almost right angles to the Shiwa, and joins the Oxus valley near its debouchment into the more open Kolab plains, where the course of the Oxus has again assumed a direction parallel to the mountain strike. All that we know about this river (which is called the Ragh or Sadda) is that towards its junction with the Oxus it cuts through successive mountain ridges, which renders its course impracticable as a roadway. It is necessary to avoid the river, and to pass by mountain tracks which surmount a series of local spurs or offshoots from the central plateau, in order to reach the Oxus. The existence of this route, which traverses the Darwaz mountains from east to west, cutting off the northern bend of the Oxus, and connecting those easterly routes which intersect the Pamirs by means of the Ghund and Shakhdara (and which concentrate about Lake Shiwa) with Kolab in eastern Bokhara, is important. (See Badakshan.)
From about the point where the Oxus commences to separate the Bokharan province of Kolab from the comparatively open Afghan Karateghin Affluents. districts of Rustak and Kataghan, the channel of the river is no longer confined within walls of mountains of volcanic and schistose formation. The Kolab and the Surkhab (or Waksh) flow into it in broad muddy streams from the highlands of Karateghin, and the river at once commences to adopt an uncertain channel wherever the outstretched arms of the hills fail to confine it within definite limits. It divides its waters, splitting into many channels, leaving broad central islands; and as the width increases, and the depth during dry seasons diminishes, opportunities for fords become comparatively frequent. Between Kolab and Pata Kesar, immediately north of the Turkestan capital of Mazar-i-Sharif, there are at least three well-known “guzars” or fords, and there are probably more. Besides the great muddy affluents from Karateghin on the north, the Kabadian, the Surkhan, and the Darbant are all of them very considerable tributaries from Bokhara. The last of the three is the river on which the well-known trade centre of Shirabad is built, some 20 m. north of the river. Near the junction of the Surkhan with the Oxus are the ruins of the ancient city of Termez, on the northern or Bokharan bank, and the ferry at Pata Kesar (not far from the ruins of an old bridge) is the connecting link between Bokhara and Mazar hereabouts. A Russian branch railway is said to have been recently built from Samarkand to Termez.
From the south two very remarkable affluents of the Oxus join their streams to the main river between Kolab and the Mazar Badakshan Affluents. crossings. The Kokcha and the Khanabad (or Kunduz) are the two great rivers of Badakshan. The valley of the Kokcha leads directly from the Oxus to Faizabad, the capital of Badakshan, and its head is close above Ishkashim at the southern elbow of the great Oxus bend, a low pass of only 9500 ft. dividing its waters from those of the main river. This undoubtedly was a section of the great central trade route of Asia, which once connected Ferghana and Herat with Kashgar and China. (See Badakshan.) Both these rivers tap the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush, and claim their sources in the unmapped mountain wilderness of Kafiristan. The Khanabad, or Kunduz, is also called locally the Aksarai. All the rivers of Central Asia are known by several names. To the west of the Kunduz no rivers find their way through the southern banks of the Oxus. Throughout the plains of Afghan Turkestan the drainage from the southern hills is arrested and lost in the desert sands.
The only island of any size in the bed of the river is the island of Paighambar, a little below the ruins of Termez. The inhabitants of this island, and of a smaller one in the neighbourhood called Zarshoi, wash for gold in the bed of the river.
At Airatan, a little above the Pata Kesar ferry, there are ruins, as also at Khisht Tapa (where the road from Kabadian to Tashkurghan leaves the river) and at Kalukh Tapa. At Khisht Tapa there is a tradition of a bridge having once existed.
The Oxus river, as seen in flood at this part of its course, is an imposing stream. It is rarely less than 1000 yards wide, and in Channel of the Oxus. some places it is fully a mile across. Its winter channel may be estimated at from two-thirds to three-fourths of its flood channel, except where it is confined within narrow limits by a rocky bed, as at Kilif, where its unvarying width is only 540 yards. The average strength of the current in flood is about 4 m. per hour, varying from 2½ to 5 m. The left bank of the Oxus above Kilif is, as a rule, low and flat, with reed swamps bordering the stream and a strip of jungle between the reeds and the edge of the elevated sandy desert. The jungle is chiefly tamarisk and padah (willow). Swamp deer, pheasants, and occasionally tigers are found in it. The right bank is generally higher, drier, more fertile and more populated than the left.
A wide belt of blown sand (or Chul), sprinkled with saxaul jungle, separates the swamps on the south side of the river from the cultivated Cultivation. plains of Afghan Turkestan; but in places, notably for about 12 m. above Khamiab, where the Russo-Afghan boundary touches the river, through the districts which are best known by the name of Khwaja Salar, and again in a less degree for 50 m. above the ferry at Kilif, a very successful war has been waged by the agricultural Turkman (of the Ersari tribes) against the encroaching sand-waves of the desert; and a strip of riverain soil averaging about a mile in width has been reclaimed and cultivated by irrigation. The cultivation, supported by canals drawn from the Oxus, the heads of which are constantly being destroyed by flood and again renewed, is of a very high order. Wheat and barley spread in broad crops over many square miles of rich soil; the fields are intersected by narrow little stone-walled lanes, bright with wayside flowers, amongst which the poppy and the purple thistle of Badghis are predominant; the houses are neatly built of stone, and stand scattered about the landscape in single homesteads, substantial and comfortable; and the spreading willow and the mulberry offer a most grateful shade to the wayfarer in summer time, when the heat is often insupportable. The fiery blasts of summer, furnace-heated over the red-hot Kizil Kum, are hardly less to be feared than the ice-cold shamshir (or north-western blizzard) of winter, which freezes men when it finds them in the open desert, and frequently destroys whole caravans.
The principle on which the Oxus ferries are worked is peculiar to those regions. Large flat-bottomed boats are towed across the Oxus Ferries. river by small horses attached to an outrigger projecting beyond the gunwale by means of a surcingle or bellyband. They are thus partially supported in the water whilst they swim. The horses are guided from the boat, and a twenty- or thirty-foot barge with a heavy load of men and goods will be towed across the river at Kilif (where, as already stated, the width of the river is between 500 and 600 yards only) with ease by two of these animals. The Kilif ferry is on the direct high-road between Samarkand and Akcha. It is perhaps the best-used ferry on the Oxus.
Khwaja Salar derives some historical significance from the fact that it presented a substantial difficulty to the settlement of the Khwaja Salar. Russo-Afghan boundary, in which it was assigned by agreement as the point of junction between that boundary and the Oxus. It had been defined in the agreement as a “post” on the river banks, and had been so described by Burnes in his writings some fifty years previously. But no post such as that indicated could be discovered. There was a district of that name extending from Khamiab to the neighbourhood of Kilif, and at the Kilif end of the district was a ziarat sacred to the Khwaja who bore the name. It was only after long inquiry amongst local cultivators and landowners that, about 2 m. below the ziarat, and nearly opposite to the site of the present Karkin bazaar, the position of a lost ferry was identified, which had once been marked by a riverside hamlet called by the name of the saint. The ferry had long disappeared, and with it a considerable slice of the riverside alluvial soil, which had been washed into the stream by the action of floods. The post had, in fact, subsided to the bottom of the river, but the consequences of its disappearance had been both far-reaching and expensive.
Below Khamiab, to its final disappearance in the Aral Sea. the great river rolls in silent majesty through a vast expanse of sand and
