136 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
passed across Central Asia to Bokhara as early as 1550. He landed on 
the shore of the Caspian at Ming-kishlag, and came down thé coast to 
point where, as he heard, the Oxus had formerly disembogued into the 
sea; but he was told that the river had lately changed its course and 
gone back into the Sea of Aral. The ruler of the country, Abul-Ghaz 
Khan, who had left a most elaborate history of it, gave distinct details of 
this occurrence, and mentioned the very year in which the river began to 
return into the Aral. He related how the stream gradually dried up, and 
formed the sea as it at present exists. Evidence indeed could be given 
of the condition of the stream, almost year by year, from that time to the 
present ; but it would be sufficient to state that every modern traveller 
who had passed through those regions had found the old bed of the River 
Oxus exactly where it was originally described. It was first brought to 
our notice by Mouravieff, a Russian agent, who passed from the Balkan 
pian, the Aral being non-existent ; that after that, up to the year 1300, 
they fell into the Aral; that for the next two hundred years—namely, 
from 1300 to 1500—they came back into the Caspian ; and that then, at 
a fourth stage, they gradually flowed back into the Aral, and formed th 
sea as we now know it. 
The changes thus noticed were very important in reference to what 
aight be the future history of these rivers and these countries. It was 
names as 
“The Oxus is, for many reasons, of great importance to Russia than evel: 
axartes. It disembogued at iod into the Caspian, and its bed 
to that sea still remains. Some are of opinion that the course of the river 
+ eg : eae . its ancient bed, while others consider it impossi- 
bie to do so. It can, however, be positively asserted tl isti 
re “ positively that existing 
* . 
a 
