We come now to the Merv oasis, situated east of the
Tejend towards the end of the River Murgab. This
river rises in the Safed Koh or White Mountains in
Afghanistan, and has a course of about 200 miles, run-
ning parallel with, and at a distance of 120 or 140 miles
from, the Tejend. A t Penjdeh, or Panjdeh, about 120
miles north of Herat, where the Kushk, or Kuk, falls
into the Murgab, the river is, in December, a deep
stream of pure water about 60 feet wide, flowing in a
channel, worn to the depth o f 30 feet into the clay soil.
T he valley at Penjdeh is about 9 miles wide, but narrows
to three-quarters o f a mile at Yulutan. Here the
stream, 50 yards wide, is deep, and flows at about five
miles an hour. T he valley is bounded by sandy hills,
rising to 600 feet above the river level. These hills
gradually broaden out and sink into the plain of
Merv.
The valley of the Murgab from Penjdeh to Yulutan
does not reach Sarakhs. Canals, however, are brought thus far and
even 7 or 8 miles beyond. Below Sarakhs the river flows on in one
stream, from 100 to 150 feet broad, the water being high from January
to March, O’Donovan swam the stream in February, at a place north
of Kangah-Guzar. Lieutenant Alikhanoff, when travelling as a
merchant, crossed the Tejend at Karybent dam, where, in the middle of
February, the river had a breadth of 70, and a depth of 5-J feet. During
six weeks caravans can cross the stream only at Alaman-Chungul, to
which point the Tejend proper does not reach, the water being conducted
there and beyond by canals. In April the stream at many
points is not more than 4 feet deep, and in June and July it may be
crossed anywhere, when the steepness of the banks permit. The river
inundates the country only when the dam above Herat is destroyed.
In summer the Tejend ceases to have any current, and may be said to
consist mostly of long lakes, fed, in the opinion of the natives, by
spnngs, or perhaps by subterranean prolongations of some of the
streams that flow from the Persian mountains towards, though none so
far as, the Tejend. This opinion is founded on the fact that the water
in these lakes is cold, and does not dry up in the hottest summer, which
would hardly be the case if they were mere accumulations of water
in deep holes of the river bed.
was once a well-populated district, as is shown by its
now ruined vineyards and deserted fields. Abbott and
Shakespear, about 1840, travelled from Herat to Merv
along the Kushk and Murgab ; but the country between
the Murgab and Heri Rud was unknown to
science till, in 1882-3-4, M. Lessar travelled there.*
Along the Upper Murgab are the Saryk settlements
of Bala Murgab and Penjdeh. Further south the
Afghan Djemshidi and Teimurs occupy the slopes of
the Paropamisus. West of the Murgab to the Heri
Rud there is scarcely a single inhabited point, and all the
forts along the Kushk are in ruins. Even among the
neighbouring natives this intermediate district is known
only to the “ Sirdars,''’ or leaders of robber-bands, and
neither caravans nor travellers have for a long time
risked venturing into this district, from fear of encountering
Saryk or Merv raiders.
So recently as 1883, the Baron Benoist-Mechin, in
proceeding from Merv to Sarakhs, speaks of the
approach to the Tejend as the most dangerous part of
the route, by reason of robbers, and how he camped a
few miles from the spot where an engineer and four of
his Cossack escort had been recently murdered.
All around the Merv oasis is desert, which long
served better than fortifications to protect the plundering
Turkomans from retribution, whether from Persia,
Afghanistan, Bokhara, or Khiva. This surrounding
desert, however, varies in its nature. That to the
north, north-west, and east, is sandy and arid ; but the
south, as I have said, is a tract of a different kind,
which shows traces of irrigation in the remote past, one
canal in particular, the Kara-i-ab, extending 40 miles
in the direction of the Tejend. This tract of country
* Proceedings o f tke Royal Geographical Society, January, 1883.