50

INDIA

Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission of 1884-86. From
Zulfikar it cuts across two great affluents of the Murghab
River (the Kushk and Kashan streams), touching a point
on the Kushk River about sixty miles north of Herat, but
separated from that city by the Koh-i-Baba Mountains.
Thence it runs north-east through « Chol ” and flat Turkoman
 ¢ dasht” to the cultivation that borders the Oxus at
Khamiab. The “Chol” is but a vast procession of low
hills cut out by the drainage action of ages from loess
formations which, composed partly of washed-down detritus
 from the mountains and partly of blown sand from
the great north-western deserts of Kara Kum, form a
wide ramp stretching from the Band-i-Turkestan Mountains
 far northward into the plains of the Oxus. The
Band-i-Turkestan are the northern offshoots of the great
central mass of mountains which separate the Oxus plains
from the highlands of Afghanistan. For the winter half of
the year the Chol countryis a barren and desolate region,
especially beloved of marmots and rats. From off the
face of it every vestige of vegetation has been swept by
the fierce blasts of the autumn winds, until it presents the
appearance of a desolate sea of rigid sand waves. In
spring and summer it becomes glad with the brilliant hues
of acres of tulips, poppies, and purple-headed thistles
amidst knee-deep grass—a land of beauty, which the
wild ass and the antelope share between them. There is
little space in the narrow intersecting valleys of the Chol
for cultivation, but it is probable that under the more
settled conditions that have prevailed in that country
during the last fifteen years, that little has been greatly
developed. Passing about twenty miles to the west of
the modern city of Andkui (the probable site of the
ancient Antiokhia, built by Antiokhus, son of Seleukus),
through the flat, but not entirely arid, Turkoman dasht
to the saxsal covered sand dunes of the Oxus River and
the cultivation of Khamiab, the Afghan boundary at
length touches the banks of the river. From this point
to Lake Victoria (the great central lake of the Pamirs), for
650 miles, the Oxus defines it, and lifts it through every