Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/114

 102 OXUS Yar, is now in the hands of Bokhara, including Karategin which tlic Russians have transferred to it from Khokand and Danvaz at the entrance to the Pamir highlands. At the present time the states on the left bank of the Oxus, from its sources in the Panjah river down to the town and ferry of Klnvaja Saleh, are mainly subject to Afghanistan ; from Khwaja Saleh to the frontiers of Khiva and Russia at Ichka Yar the left bank of the Oxus is subject to Bokhara ; from the same point the Afghan boundary is supposed to stretch across the Dasht-i-chul plains of the Turkomans, above Maimana, to Sarakhs, where it meets the Persian frontier. The regions in which the Oxus takes its birth, and through which it passes until it becomes lost in the Sea of Aral, may be divided into upper, middle, and lower : the upper is constituted by the highlands between the Thian Shan and the Hindu Kiish ranges, and the middle by the plains and uplands which are situated in the broad valley between the western prolongations of the same ranges ; the lower lies in the plains of western Turkestan. Descrip tions of the chief provinces and states in the middle and lower regions will be found under AFGHAN TURKESTAN (vol. i. p. 241), including the eastern khanates of Kunduz, Khulm, Balkh, and Akcha, and the Chahdr Wilayat, or Four Domains, viz., the western khanates of Sir-i-pul, Shibrghan, Andkhui, and Maimana ; also under BADAKH- SHAN, KARATEGIN, HISSAR, BOKHARA, and KHIVA; accounts have also been already given of BACTRIA, BALKH, and BAMIAN. Here we shall only treat of the highland regions of the Oxus, and the river itself in its downward course to the Sea of Aral, postponing all other matter to the article TURKESTAN (see also the map of Turkestan). For a right understanding of the highland region, notice must be taken of its position relatively to the two great longitudinal systems of mountains, the Thian Shan and the Indian Caucasus, and their respective prolongations east and west, which form such a prominent feature in the physical geography of the continent of Asia. These mountain systems include between them a belt of table lands of varying breadth, and generally of considerable altitude. The forces of nature by which both the mountains and the intermediate table-lands were primarily evolved from the earth s crust .appear to have acted con currently over the entire region, but with greatest elevat ing effect along the northern edge of the Caucasus for, though the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush and the Himalayan ranges are more frequently met with on spurs some distance to the south than on the northern water- parting, the elevated masses are here of greatest magni tude ; here there are mountains whose peaks rise to great altitudes above the sea-level, but which are comparatively insignificant differentially, the visible height above the surrounding table-lands being rarely more than a third, and often less than a tenth, of the height above the sea ; and here there are passes across great ranges of which the level is barely distinguishable from that of the surrounding table-lands, so that the traveller may cross a great water- parting without being aware of it, a tussock of grass decid ing the course of the waters, whether towards the frontiers of China or of Europe or towards the Indian Ocean. The elevated mass which forms a bridge between the Thian Shan and the Hindu Caucasus, in the quarter where they approach each other most closely, constitutes the governing geographical and political feature of these regions, and gives birth to all the principal sources of the Oxus. A happy instinct has led the inhabitants to call it the Bam-i-dunia, or Roof of the World ; modern European geographers have called it the &quot; heart of Asia,&quot; the central boss of Asia.&quot; It is the Tsungling of Chinese writers, the northern Imaus of Ptolemy, the Mountain Parnassus of Aristotle, &quot; the greatest of all that exist toward the winter sunrise.&quot; The geographical indications of the Puranas, considered in any but a fabulous light, point to it as M&amp;lt;h-u, the scene of the primeval Aryan paradise. Old Parsi traditions point to it as the origin and nucleus of the Aryan migrations. And it is here that the Mohammedan invaders are shown, by their iden tification of the great rivers with the Gihon and Pison of the Mosaic narrative, to have believed that the terres trial paradise, the cradle of the human race, was situated. Few regions can present claims to interest and just curiosity so strong and various as this one. Its past history is interwoven with that of all the great Asiatic conquerors, and its position on the rapidly narrowing borderland between the British and the Russian dominions gives it additional interest at the present time. But its geography is most intricate and complicated, and has long been a fruitful subject of controversy. The region is intersected with mountain ridges and depressed river beds which are alike difficult to cross ; its altitude is unfavour able for the growth of cereals, and it mostly lies buried in snow for half the year ; it is, moreover, sparsely inhabited, and does not produce sufficient food for the requirements of the inhabitants. It interposes a formidable barrier between eastern and western Turkestan across the ancient highway from Europe to China ; and, though this barrier has been repeatedly crossed, the extant narratives of the journeys and descriptions of the routes present only occasional glimmerings of truth amidst a mass of error and confusion, and are at times barely available for sober inquiry ; genuine facts of observation have been so mixed up with erroneous information that it has become impossible to reconcile conflicting statements or separate the true from the false. Thus within the last quarter of a century maps have been published by eminent geographers in England and Germany in which the great cities of eastern Turkestan are placed 3 to 4, or over 200 miles, too far to the west, and the limits of the &quot; heart of Asia &quot; are materially narrowed. The interest attaching to the region has even led to the fabrication of spurious documents which have darkened the mist already enveloping it, and have betrayed eminent geographers into error and confusion. 1 While geography remained under the spell of these mis chievous fictions, research was impeded, and an insurmount able obstacle placed in the way of the true delineation of the region ; doubt was even thrown on the accuracy of the work of genuine explorers. But within the last decade the mist in which the &quot; Roof of the World &quot; had so long been enveloped has been largely dispelled by the labours of Russian and British officers, and also by natives of India trained to geographical exploration and employed in con nexion with the operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. In some parts there is still much doubt and uncertainty, but enough is now known to furnish the geographical student with a fairly accurate idea of the general course of the rivers and configuration of the table lands and mountains. Two systems of rivers give birth to the sources of the 1 Thus early in the present century certain papers were lodged in the secret archives of the Russian Foreign Office which purported to give an account of two unpublished records of exploration in this obscure region, one by a German traveller, Georg Ludwig von , said to have been an employe of the Anglo-Indian Government, the other by a Chinese traveller. They were brought to light in 1861, and excited the curiosity of all who were interested in the geography of this region. A few years afterwards it was discovered that a parallel mass of papers, embodying much of the same peculiar geography and nomenclature, but purporting to be the report of a Russian expedition sent through Central Asia to the frontiers of India, existed in the London Foreign Office. All three documents bear indubitable traces of having been fabricated for sale to the British and the Russian Governments by an acute geographer who, while availing himself of such genuine data as were actually within his reach, did not scruple to draw on his own imagination for the filling up of all blanks.