GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



309 



Oxus. By the agreement of January 31, 1873, 

 the post at Kodsha-Salih had been designated 

 as the most westerly point of Afghanistan. It 

 now appeared that the actual boundary be- 

 tween Bokhara and Afghanistan at the left 

 bank of the Oxus, as it had stood for thirty-six 

 years, took an entirely different course than 

 had been supposed, since it passed between the 

 village of Bossaga in Bokhara and the Afghan 

 town of Khamiab. Another difficulty was pre- 

 sented by the fact that there was no town 

 called Kodsha-Salih ; the place having most 

 claim to the appellation is the tomb of a Mo- 

 hammedan saint, called Ziaret Kodsha-Salih. 

 The largest of the four Afghan districts be- 

 tween Bossaga and Kilif, Karkin, is frequently 

 called Kodsha-Salih. As the commission could 

 not agree on this point, the governments de- 

 cided in August, 1886, to declare its work end- 

 ed, and decide by direct negotiation the termi- 

 nal of the Afghan boundary at the Oxus. 



The matter was resumed in April, 1887, at 

 St. Petersburg. On the side of England it was 

 insisted that the agreement of 1873 had for its 

 object only the maintenance of the then posi- 

 tion of the Emir of Afghanistan ; and there- 

 fore it would be fair not to insist on a bound- 

 ary drawn in ignorance of some of the facts, 

 but to allow to Afghanistan the whole terri- 

 tory of Kbamiab. On the part of Russia it 

 was urged that this principle of the recognition 

 of the boundary of Afghanistan in 1873 was 

 already broken by the treaty of September, 

 1885, which gave lands on the upper Kushk, 

 the Kashan, and the Murghab, to the Emir of 

 Afghanistan, which had undoubtedly before 

 been the property of the independent tribes 

 of the oasis of Pendjeh. 



After tedious debates an understanding was 

 reached by which Russia allowed to Afghanis- 

 tan the disputed territory on the Oxus, the dis- 

 trict of Khamiab, and received in exchange the 

 districts on the Kushk, Kashan, and Murghab 

 previously accorded to Afghanistan. By this 

 arrangement the latter country received about 

 734 square miles of which 26J square miles are 

 farming-lands, with about 13,000 inhabitants, 

 while the Turkomans received 824 square 

 miles of which 6J square miles are farming- 

 lands, and only 14 square miles are arable. 



Great gain to geographical knowledge has 

 resulted from the work of the Russian and 

 British surveyors, who were engaged during 

 the delay in 1885 and 1886 in a thorough ex- 

 amination of great tracts in Central Asia long 

 practically closed to European travelers. The 

 Russian surveyors worked upon the lands of 

 the former independent tribes, the borders to- 

 ward Persia and the Oxus. The British en- 

 gineers laid down upon the map a surface of 

 about 120,000 square miles. They measured, 

 besides the new borders, the entire province 

 of Herat, including the heretofore unknown 

 districts of Taimani and Firuzkuhi. Almost 

 the whole of Afghan Turkistan, and & great 

 part of Hazareh land in the vicinity of Bamian, 



has been surveyed or at least examined, as well 

 as the Persian province of Khorassan. 



The source of the Heri-Rud proved to be at 

 an elevation of 12,000 feet above the level of 

 the sea; it flows 70 or 80 miles under the 

 name of the Ab-i-Sar-i-jangal to Danlalyar, al- 

 most due west, and in a direction different 

 from that laid down on the maps. The Chalop- 

 dalan or Chahil Abdak peak in Imam Sherifs 

 journey through the Taimani country, was 

 identified, a solitary mountain 12,000 feet high, 

 said to be the Takht of Zohak-i-Maran, the 

 snake-bearing governor of these provinces in 

 the days of Ghur ; and it was from here that 

 he built the massive walls and towers of the 

 old forts which surround Taiwara and border 

 the road to Ghur. 



The Pamir has been crossed this year by the 

 French travelers MM. Capus, Bonvalot, and 

 P6pin. They were robbed on the way, but 

 succeeded in crossing the Pamir and the Hindu 

 Kush between Samarcand and Chitral, whither 

 help was sent to them from India. Grum 

 Greehimalo also made his third journey to the 

 Pamir, starting this time from Fergana. 



In an address before the Royal Geographical 

 Society by E. D. Morgan, giving an account of 

 Gen. Prejevalski's journeys in Central Asia, 

 the following details, with reference to the 

 eastern part of the journey, were specified as 

 having been given to the speaker by the ex- 

 plorer : First, the changes to be made in exist- 

 ing maps are, u (1) the Khoten river makes no 

 bend to the west, but has a nearly meridional 

 course from south to north (our itinerary from 

 Khoten to the confluence of the Khoten-darja 

 with the Tarim measures 327 miles) ; (2) there 

 is no such lake as Yashil-kul, nor any lakes 

 along the course of the Khoten-darja ; (3) 

 thirty miles below the fork of the Kara-Kash 

 and Khoten rivers, a low, narrow, and abso- 

 lutely barren ridge, having an elevation of only 

 500 feet, stretches from Fort Maral-bashi in 

 this direction, that is, northeast toward the 

 Khoten-darja." 



Further details were: "Forty-three miles 

 below Khoten, following the Khoten-darja, 

 otherwise known as the Yurun-Kash, lies the 

 oasis of Tavek-Kehl, inhabited by about 500 

 families, not marked on any map. Accord- 

 ing to native information, the population of 

 the Khoten oasis (including Khoten, Kara- 

 Kash, and Sam-pul) numbers 600,000. In 

 September the Khoten river is an insignifi- 

 cant stream, 70 to 100 feet wide, and from six 

 inches to one foot in depth. After a devious 

 course of seventeen miles below Mazartagh 

 ridge it dries up, only leaving pools here and 

 there along its sandy bed. In summer, how- 

 ever, there is an abundance of water, and the 

 river then reaches the Tarim. 



On either side of the Khoten river are drift- 

 sands the whole way from Khoten to the 

 Tarim. The valley of the former river is about 

 three miles wide, and indistinctly defined ; on 

 the lower river there are no inhabitants. The 



