Page:England & Russia in Central Asia,Vol-I.djvu/70

50 can be conveniently brought to the heart of Central Asia—by the construction, that is, of a railway between the Caspian and the sea of Aral."

The question we have then to consider is, "What is the most promising plan for effecting the diversion of the course of the Oxus? The following remarks represent more the opinions of a well-informed foreigner than those of the writer, who gives them here as the expression of one who is entitled to consideration upon Asian matters, and especially upon the question of the Oxus. It will be seen that at the least they qualify Herr Kiepert's strictures.

So far down its course as the Khivan town of Hazarasp the river Oxus flows in one unbroken stream. It is in its lower course from that place to the Aral—a distance of two hundred and fifty miles—that it is broken up into numerous channels, some on the right bank and others on the left. In the delta of the river which lies immediately below Nukus on the one side and Khodjeili on the other, the waste of its waters is extreme. It is computed that only half the volume of the river reaches the Aral, but there is no reason for disbelieving the assertion that the full volume extends as far down the river as Hazarasp. From that place the Doudon channel is traced in a north-westerly direction to Sarykamish, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, and although we are not as well in- formed as we could wish of the present condition of this channel, which certainly has been dammed at several points, there is some evidence to show that to clear it out would be neither an arduous nor a lengthy