Petro-Alexandrovsk to Charjui in the same steamer,
embarking on the 22nd of March. In his report
General (then Colonel) Grotenhielm stated that
Captain Briukhoff had demonstrated the navigability
of the Amu at a time when it has least water.*
These favourable reports must be accepted with
caution, for opinion is by no means all on one side,
some authorities considering the difficulties such as to
unfit the stream for ordinary navigation. M. Shaba-
shef, who, according to Kostenko, explored some
506 miles of the course of the river, was, from his
researches, brought to the conclusion that the
establishment of useful navigation o f the Amu was
absolutely impossible.t Whether or no this may be
regarded as a pessimist view I cannot say ; but it may
navigation in its upper course; the current is not nearly so strong
above as below, the banks are clayey, and fringed with reeds and fruit-
trees, and the bottom is soft; both sides of the river are densely
populated.”
* Kostenko remarks, however, that from certain parts of the report,
it is evident that the trip could not be called a successful one. On
two days, when the weather was bad, a strong wind blew about particles
of sand, and so darkened the horizon that it was difficult to see the
channel, and the steamer several times grounded, though it was always
easily got off. I learn also from the Turkistan Gazette, of 2nd October
of that year, that the matter of fuel must be a difficult one. The
saxaul forests on the Amu are not so abundant as on the Syr, and for
the trip just mentioned no less than 145 tons of saxaul were accumulated,
the steamer carrying 32 tons, and the rest being sent up stream 11 days
in advance, in n boats, which deposited, at intervals of 13 to 25 miles,
a store of 8 tons on the banks, at Pitniak, Meshekli, Itchke-Yar, Uch-
Uchak, Sartarask, Ak-Rabat, Gugerdjeili, and Kabakli. On the first
day, in calm weather, the steamer made 47 miles, at the rate of about
5 miles an hour; but from Uch-Uchak, for 100 miles, to Kabakli, the
river was so full of shallows, and so difficult to navigate, that it took 5
days, and, with other hindrances, the trip occupied 17 days. Even the
return journey down stream took 8 days to accomplish 300 miles.
t His reasons were that the swiftness of the current, in some places
6 miles an hour, would impede the progress upwards of the most
powerful steamers the Russians had in Central Asia, and that, if a more
powerful class of steamers were built, they must be larger, and so be
be noticed that, when I was at Petro-Alexandrovsk in
1882, they told me that no steamer had been running
for two years, though the Russians had been making
experiments in navigating the river since 1874.
On our arrival at the Amu, approaching Charjui, it
was easy to perceive that, in speaking of the width
and depth of the river, it was essential to mention the
season, for we were pointed to a spot five miles distant
up to which the natives said the waters reached during
four months of the year.* It is characteristic of a
large portion of the river that it has double banks.
The inner directly skirt the river at low water, the
outer are some distance off, in places as much as three
miles, with tugais, or meadows, between. The second
unsuitable for what is in many places an extremely narrow and tortuous
channel. Further, the narrowness of the channel and its constant
shifting would interfere with the towing of vessels, because, at the first
grounding, the tow-rope would break. Once more, the unequal and
sudden rise of the waters from April to August, and the fall from August
to October, making a difference of level of 8 feet, would render the
study of such a shifting stream almost impossible, and make regular
voyages altogether impracticable.
* Bumes gives the width at Charjui in August as 630 yards. At time
of high water, however, the width should be at the ferry 300 sajens, or
about 1,150 yards, and in some places 25 and 29 feet deep. I observed,-
when crossing, that 20 feet from the bank the water hardly covered a
man’s knees, and further out in the stream it did not appear to be more
than 10 feet deep. If I remember rightly, they pushed with poles all
across. Masts and sails are unknown, nor did we see swimming horses
attached to a boat to drag it across. The natives, when telling me
there were no fords below Chatjui, added that they sometimes swim
horses across at low water in the narrow parts, putting under them inflated
skins on either side. Communication is maintained on the upper
river by smaller boats than those I have alluded to, and rafts are used
there for the transport of timber and firewood. The fall of the river
from Khoja Saleh to Charjui, Bumes estimated at 600 feet, in which he
appears to be a long way out, since, according to Russian reckoning,
it should be 220 feet, the altitude of the following places in feet being:-—
Kilif, 730; Kerki, 640; Burdalik, 580; Narizim, 545; Charjui, 510 ;
after which, for the next 500 miles to its mouth, the river falls to
167 feet.