Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/59

 Rh

Alexandrovsk, and immediately north of the town of Khiva. Following a north-west course, and then a due west one, it reaches Sarykamish in longitude 57½; but of this channel we possess less authentic information than of the others. It is believed, however, that its further course has been choked up, and that the furrow in the soil is not perceptible much beyond the vicinity of Khiva itself. The term Oghus is applied by German writers to the Uzboi, which is generally accepted as the main channel from Sarykamish to the Caspian, whichever may have been the principal link between that lake and the river itself. The Kunya-darya-lik (the old little river) leaves the Oxus at a point fifteen miles lower down the river than the Doudon, and runs in a direct north-westerly course to the city of Kunya Urgendj, and it then passes under the base of the Tchink into the Sarykamish lake. This branch has generally been considered the main channel, and the term Uzboi has been extended so as to embrace that channel known as the Kunya-darya-lik. Major Wood expresses the opinion that the Uzboi was more probably "the channel of that other river into which the southerly overflow from Lake Aral finally resolved itself, and which is mentioned by Masadi in the tenth century;" but here we take it as the principal channel of the Oxus, because it is in all probability by means of it alone that the course of that river can be effectually diverted.

Whether the Kunya-darya-lik or the Doudon was the main course of the Oxus in olden days matters little at present; and the only practical problem that