Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/260
The Farokhar, or river of Talikân, is the most easterly, coming out of Badakshan, the boundary of which runs along the watershed on its left bank. The Bangi flows through Khost from the highlands of Badakhshan, east of Andarab. A third tributary, the Shorâb, salt, as its name implies, drains the high range called Esk-mushk, above Narin.
The Surkhab or Kunduz river enters the Oxus at a point approximately (no traveller has visited the confluence) 32 miles N.W. of Kunduz, its whole length, exclusive of minor windings, being about 220 miles.
From Ghori downwards, the hills which bound the valley on either side appear to be of no great elevation, and to be tolerably clothed with grass, and occasionally with fir trees; the aspect of the country gradually approximating to that of Badakhshan, in contrast to the more sterile offshoots of Koh-i-Baba to the westward.
Kunduz itself lies very low, scarcely 500 feet above sea level, and the roads approaching the town have to pass over piles amid the swampy vegetation. The adjacent plain is in the main richly cultivated and thickly peopled, but it is interspersed with extensive tracts of jungly grass, and is extremely and proverbially unhealthy. The plains, which extend, though not unbroken, from Kunduz to the Oxus, are free from the bare and repulsive character of those further west, and are described as covered in part with rich cultivation, thick with groves and hamlets, and in part with splendid pasture.
Proceeding westward, the next tributary to the Oxus basin is the Khulm river. The traveller from Bamian northward first touches the Khulm river, on descending from the Kara-Kotal, at a spot called Doâb Shâhpasand, probably 5000 feet above the sea, where its two main sources join, and the main road to Turkestan keeps on or near the river till its exit on the Oxus plain. The character of the mass of mountains which extends from the Koh-i-Baba to Khulm is utter rocky aridity, but broken sometimes in the sudden trench-like valleys by an exuberant vigour of vegetation. Along a chain of these trench-like gorges, walled by stupendous cliffs seeming sometimes almost to close overhead, the traveller descends towards Khulm. At Haibak the valley open out, but closes in again before Khulm is reached. Here he emerges from a narrow gorge upon the plain of the Oxus, some 20 miles from the great river, and leaves the mountains suddenly, as one leaves the gate of a fortress, still rising behind in a bold rampart to the height of 2500 feet. The river is believed to be spent in irrigation before reaching the Oxus.
As far north at least as Khurram, half-way from Bamain to Khulm, the offshoots of Koh-i-Baba, west of the Khulm defile, must reach a height of 11,000 or 12,000 feet; for here Ferrier found bitter cold and snow on the top on the 7th of July (latitude nearly 36°).
The next river westward is the Balkh river, sometimes called Dehás. It rises not far from some of the tributaries of the Surkhab, nor from the sources of the Herat river, at a remarkable spot which, under the name of the Band-i-Barbar, or Barbar dam, is the subject of various legends, though we have no distinct account of it. The valley of Yekâlang, on the upper waters of this river, at a height of 7000 feet above the sea, was visited by A. Conolly, and is described by him as fertile, well-watered, and populous, about 15 miles in length by ¼ to ½ mile in width. Ferrier is the only traveller who has crossed the mature stream, and he merely mentions that he forded it, and that it was rather rapid. We thus know almost nothing of the river. In length it cannot come far short of the Surkhab. Beyond the lofty mountains recently spoken of, some of the hills towards the Balkh-ab have a thin clothing of wood, and the valleys opening on the river are wide and not unfertile. The main valley expands into level tracts of pasture, covered by long grass, and intersected by artificial water-courses; but (as with the Khulm river) the gorge from which the stream issues on the Oxus plain is narrow, and walled in by very high hills on either side. The ruins and gardens of ancient Balkh stand about 6 miles from the hills, but no part of the river appears to reach the site in its natural bed, nor does any part of its waters reach the Oxus in a running stream.
The plains that slope from the gardens of Balkh to the Oxus are naturally white hard steppes, destitute of spontaneous verdure save sparse brush of tamarisk and other meagre growths; but the soil responds richly to irrigation whenever this is bestowed.
The next stream that we meet with, and the last that can be considered even as an indirect tributary of the Oxus, is that which fertilises the small khanates of Shibrghan and Andkhui, on the verge of the Turkman desert; whilst the two confluents that contribute to form it have previously watered the territories of Siripul and Maimana. The river, or whatever survives of its water after irrigating Andkhui, is lost in the desert. The taste of the water is abominable, and, though the inhabitants are accustomed to it, strangers suffer from its use.
The last river that we have to notice is the Murghab, which rises between the two northern branches of the Koh-i-Baba or Paropamisus. Ferrier is the only traveller who has been on the upper waters of the Murghab. He takes no notice of the river itself, but describes a remarkable plain or basin, about 120 miles in circuit, entirely surrounded by mountains, well-watered, and rich in vegetation. The people are Mongol Hazaras, and, according to Ferrier, idolaters. Their country is a part of the old territory of Garjistân. At Shah Mashad, about half-way between this and the plains, the river was crossed by Major Eldred Pottinger, but we have no access to his report. Further down, as the river approaches the foot of Murghab Bâlâ, on the road from Maimana to Heart, it runs with great violence, and the valley narrows to a defile. At Panjdeh, 35 to 40 miles below Merghab, it begins to flow through a valley of clay soil, bounded by sandy heights, and gradually opening into the plain of Merv. Hereabouts, too, it quits the Afghan territory, but the boundary does not seem as yet to have been precisely fixed. About 100 miles from Panjdeh the river reaches Merv, where formerly there was a great dam, securing the fertility of that oasis, the nucleus of ancient Margiana. This was destroyed by the Amir Maasum (otherwise Shah Murad) of Bokhara, about 1785, when he carried off the whole population into slavery. Beyond Merv the river is lost in the desert.
Provinces and Places of Note.—We do not know the precise divisions maintained under the Afghans, but they coincide generally with the old principalities or khanates, the hereditary rulers of which, in several cases, continue in authority under the Afghan governor of Turkestan. Bamian, Saighan, and the higher valleys belong, it is understood, to a special command over the Hazara tribes.
I. Kunduz.—Beginning again from the east, the first province is Kunduz, having on the east, having on the east Badakhshan, on the west Khulm, on the north the Oxus, and on the south Hindu Kush. The districts of Kunduz are approximately as follows:—(1.) Kunduz, with the chief town of the province, a wretched place, as described by Wood, of some 500 or 600 mud huts, intermingled with straw sheds, Uzbek tents, gardens, and corn-fields, and overlooked by a mud fort on an extensive mound. (2.) Hazrat Imân, on the irrigated and fertile Oxus plain. The town, known in the Middle Ages as Arhang, is described as about the same size as Kunduz, with a better fort, protected by a wet ditch. (3.) Baghlân, and (4.) Ghori, in the swampy valley of the Surkhab. (5.) Doshi, further up the same valley, at the confluence of the Andarab stream. (6.) Killagai and Khinjân, near the lower part of the Andarab stream. (7.) Andarab, at the foot of the Tul and Khâwak passes over Hindu Kush, often supposed to be the Adrapsa of Alexander's historians. This secluded town was a favourite minting place of the Samanid sovereigns of Persia and Turkestan, in the 10th century, probably owing to the vicinity of silver mines at Paryân. (8.) Khost lies between Andarab and Kunduz. The name often occurs in the history of Baber and his successors. (9.) Narin and Ishkimish lie to the east of Baghlan, at the sources of the Baghlan stream and of the Shorab branch of the Kunduz river. The second name appears to be the same as Eshkmushk, which Wood applies to a high mountain in this quarter. (10.) Farhang and Châl lie on the borders of Badakhshan, and are utterly unknown. (11.) Tâlikân also lies on the borders of Badakhshan, but is pretty well known, being on the main road between Kunduz and Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan. It is now a poor place, but is ancient, and was once famous. A fortress here stood a long siege from Chinghiz Khan, and the place is mentioned by Marco Polo as Taican. During the rule of Murad Beg of Kunduz this was the seat of a government that included Badakhshan. (12.) Khanabad, on the river of that name, pleasantly elevated above the swampy level of Kunduz, is, or was, the usual summer residence of the chiefs of that territory.
II. Khulm was the next of the khanates, lying between Kunduz and Balkh. The districts, as far as we know them, are the following:—(1.) Tâshkurghân. The old town of Khulm stood in the Oxus plain, surrounded by watered orchards of famous productiveness; but it lay so exposed to the raids of the Kunduz Uzbeks that the chief, Killich Ali, in the beginning of this century, transferred