Amur River

“ These Asiatic rivers are tricky things: they run for hundreds of miles through alluvial plains which are as flat as your hand. Here at Amarah, 200 miles from the mouth of the Tigris, we are only 28ft. above sea-level. Consequently the river's course is very easily altered. Look at Stanford's map of this region and see how the Euphrates has lost itself between Nasiriyah and Basra—"old channel," "new channel," creeks, marshes, lakes, flood-areas and so on; the place is a nightmare. That kind of thing is liable to happen anywhere if the river is neglected. ”

“ The Amur country is exceedingly interesting. Highly original. The life here is such as people have no conception of in Europe. It reminds me of American stories. The shores of the Amur are so wild, original, and luxuriant that one longs to live there all one’s life. I am writing these last few lines on the 25th of June. The steamer rocks and prevents my writing properly. We are moving again. I have come a thousand versts down the Amur already, and have seen a million gorgeous landscapes; I feel giddy with ecstasy.... It’s marvellous scenery, and how hot! ”

“ Still farther to the west, the next oasis—if such it can be called—is that of ’Ain Amur, of which mention has already been made. It [316] lies about twenty-four miles W.S.W. of ’Ain Um Debadib, close to the top of a precipitous cliff facing the northern boundary of a portion of the detached limestone plateau to which reference has already been made.
’Ain Amur stands some 1,680 feet above sea-level. The existence of a well at such a high altitude, in an excessively arid region like the Libyan Desert, is something in the nature of a phenomenon. ”

“ Both in the valley and on these slopes the lavas have the upper hand; but the grey lacustrine marls are seldom absent or for long. They provide favoured stretches, covered with luscious herbage, where a little stream may trickle down from the barren heights. Still the scene remains wild, bleak rather than of impressive ruggedness; there is space along the margin of the river, which flows in a deep cañon through the sombre eruptive rock. Some stunted oak springs from the crevices among the boulders, but it rather enhances than relieves the mournful aspect of the surroundings. ”

“ Our course for the rest of the day lay on this bank of the river; the road leaves the plain and dives into the narrows, where walls of rock enclose the swirling stream. The Kur is following the base of the border ranges, piercing the spurs where they meet the outskirts of the Dochus Punar. In places it has a width of some 50 yards or more, and the eye cannot penetrate the dull depths; but more often it is a narrow and shallow torrent, wreathing and foaming over the rocks. ”

“ But for the Passion Play the great world had never found Oberammergau out, perhaps; yet it might well be sought for itself. It lies 2,600 feet above the sea, at the head of 385 a long stretch of meadow lands, which the River Ammer keeps green for half the year,—at the head of these, and in the gateway of one of the most beautiful walled valleys of the Alps. The Ammer is at once its friend and foe; in summer a friend, but malicious in spring, rising suddenly after great rains or thaws, and filling the valley with a swift sea, by which everything is in danger of being swept away. ”

“ Through these swamps it is almost impossible to trace the course of the various rivers. The Bahr-el-Ghazal itself is described as a drainage channel rather than a true river. From the confluence of the Lol with the Jur, above which point none of the rivers is called Bahr-el-Ghazal, to the junction with the Nile at Lake No, is a distance of about 200 m. Just above the Lol confluence the Jur broadens out and forms a lake (Ambadi) 10 m. long and over a mile broad at low water and very much larger in flood time. ”

“ The river which threads the valley is composed by the union of two main streams, the one coming from the north through a direct passage from the plains of the tableland, the other from the east, the direction of the Güzel Dere and the road to Van. The waters meet at some little distance above the settlement, to bury themselves on a south-westerly course in a ravine or cañon with a depth of about 100 feet. From either side of the ravine rise the slopes of the mountains, leaving no great interval of level ground. The road is taken along the right bank upon the summit of the cliff ”

“ Water could perhaps be found at other places in the neighbourhood, as there is a long strip of green camel thorn—argul—running horizontally along the cliff below the plateau, at the level of the well, which lies near its western end.
Formerly ’Ain Amur must have been a place of some importance. Close to the well are the ruins of a small stone temple still showing traces of paint, and situated, like many of the temples in Kharga Oasis, in the centre of a walled enclosure of sun-dried bricks, possibly intended as a defence. ”

“ Towards the end of summer the moist monsoons bring heavy rains, which destroy the harvests and give rise to serious inundations of the Amur. The sea-coast farther north has a continental and arctic climate. ”

“ I computed the perpendicular height of the fall to be above 20 feet, and the breadth of the stream to be something more than 80; but it is so closely covered with trees or bushes, and the ground so uneven, that it needs great perseverance and attention to approach it nearly with safety; the stream covers the rock without leaving any part of it visible, and the whole river falls uninterrupted down with an incredible violence and noise, without being anyway broken or divided; below this cataract it becomes considerably narrower, and, as we have said, in this state runs on to join the Nile. ”

“ The width of the White Nile now increases, until it resembles a lake rather than a river. The forest land entirely disappears. The river here is thronged by immense flocks of pelicans, storks, geese, ducks, and other water-birds.
Eventually the palms of Khartoum and the roofs of Omdurman are distinguishable in the distance, and the historic tree—mentioned by the earlier travellers as the spot where all fleets starting for the south used to assemble—makes a good landmark on the eastern bank. ”

“ Another large stream, the Hawash, rising in the Abyssinian mountains, is lost in a saline depression near the Gulf of Aden. Lastly, between the basins of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans there is an area of inland drainage along the centre of the East African plateau, directed chiefly into the lakes in the great rift-valley. The largest river is the Omo, which, fed by the rains of the Abyssinian highlands, carries down a large body of water into Lake Rudolf. The rivers of Africa are generally obstructed either by bars at their mouths or by cataracts at no great distance up-stream. ”

“ After advancing about ten miles in a south-east direction from Berberah, we entered rough and broken ground, and suddenly came upon a Fiumara about 250 yards broad. The banks were fringed with Brab and Tamarisk, the Daum palm and green rushes: a clear sparkling and shallow stream bisected the sandy bed, and smaller branches wandered over the surface. This river, the main drain of the Ghauts and Sub-Ghauts, derives its name from the increased volume of the waters during night: evaporation by day causes the absorption of about a hundred yards. ”

“ Although the great majority of the inhabitants avow themselves immune from the disease, they are averse to settling in the valleys. A feature of the river is the abruptness with which the broad open spaces are changed to narrow gorges of no remarkable height. This trait in the character of an otherwise respectable inland river compresses so great a volume of water into so small a channel that its passage is attended with risk. It is not until the spreading expanses of the Pendjeh, Yulatan and Merv oases have exhausted it that the stream is crossed with convenience. ”

“ The rajah of Tilgaun—the uncle of the present man—caught two and put them to torture, but they died silent. And another strange thing is, that nobody knows how the Northern Ahbors get into and out of their country. The river is a lot too swift for boats. The forest seems impenetrable. The cliffs are unclimbable. ”

“ There, this great central water-parting, so formidable in its altitudes for many hundreds of miles, sinks to insignificant levels and the comparatively gentle gradients of a debased and disintegrated range. This divide is parted and split by the passage of the Hari Rud River; but the passage of the river is hill-enclosed and narrow, with many a rock-bound gorge which would not readily lend itself to railway-making (although by no means precluding it) , so that the ridges of the divide could be better passed elsewhere. ”

“ The natives state that attempts to dig down deeper are prevented by the light soil falling in.
Near the watershed the wells are more numerous. There are four wells in the upper part of Khor Haieit, and several others in the deep valleys through which the larger khors drain into the Haieit, Amur, and Arab basins. In the upper part of Wadi Amur, above Sararat, wells are reported to be about 11 miles apart. On the eastern side, besides the existing wells, water could probably be found at a depth of a few feet anywhere in Khor Arbat. ”

“ The latter is waterless and rather longer than the ’Ain Amur road, but runs over the level, and is consequently the one most used, as the ’Ain Amur road necessitates a laborious climb up to the plateau, with a correspondingly difficult descent. It has, however, the advantage of having a well of rather bitter water about midway along it, and in consequence is occasionally used by small parties, especially in the hot weather. Several branch roads split off from the Gubary road, and lead to Beris and the places in the south of Kharga Oasis; but they are hardly ever used. ”

“ They retain their fair complexion even in this climate, as well as their roundness of face and form. Several among them would come to the margin of an adjacent stream, in order to wash their grain. Their bare feet were as shapely as their hands. From Charbahur we made an excursion to the passage of the Murad, riding first to the confluence of the important stream which collects the drainage of the southern slopes of the Bingöl plateau. A ridge from the Khamur heights extends across the wide valley, choking it up and checking the drainage of its considerable extension towards the west. ”

“ The hill tracks, which form the main lines of communication, are seldom easy; they are often difficult, sometimes dangerous.”
The country is watered by the river which goes in its northern course indifferently by the names of the Yarkhun, the Mastuj or the Chitral River, and which, flowing from a glacier of the Hindu Kush, runs south-westerly to Asmar, where it becomes known as the Kunar River, and falls into the Kabul River near Jalalabad. ”

“ This great water artery receives no affluents for more than 1500 miles from its mouth—the Atbara River, meeting it above Berber, being the last tributary that joins it,—and throughout a considerable portion of its lower course, reckoned from the Nubian Desert northwards, the people can only live by congregating close to its banks. ”

“ All the other rivers which we call great, though some of them are insignificant as compared with the Amazons,—the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, and the Danube,—deposit extensive deltas, and the smaller rivers also, with few exceptions, are constantly building up the land at their mouths by the materials they bring along with them. Even the little river Kander, emptying into the Lake of Thun, is not without its delta. ”

“ The dam on the Euphrates which regulated the flowing of its waters into the Hindîyeh canal has been allowed to fall into disrepair; every year a deeper and a stronger stream flows down the Hindîyeh, and matters have reached such a pass that during the season of low water the eastern bed is dry, the palm gardens of Ḥilleh are dying for lack of irrigation, and all the country along the river-bank below Ḥilleh has gone out of cultivation. ”

“ The current at this point is as usual very strong, being upwards of two and a half miles per hour; the river is quite bank-full although not actually flooding, the windings endless; one moment our course is due north, then east, then again north, and as suddenly due south; in fact, we face every point of the compass within an hour. Frequently the noggurs that are far in the rear appear in advance; it is a heartbreaking river without a single redeeming point ”

“ It may not be out of place to cast one’s look a little further so as to include the other great lakes. That of Urmi in the Persian frontier province of Azerbaijan has an area of 1823 square miles. Its extreme length from north to south is about 80 miles, and its breadth from east to west 24 miles. It resembles its neighbour on the west in constituting an isolated basin, many rivers flowing in but none out. On the other hand its insignificant depth invests it with the character of a lagoon; the average being probably not more than 20 feet and the maximum some 45 or 50 feet. ”

“ The narrow and choked Bahr Giraffe has disappeared; instead of which a river of a hundred yards' width of clear running water meets us at the junction of our cutting. As far as the eye can reach to the E.S.E., there is a succession of large open sheets of water where a few days ago we saw nothing but a boundless plain of marsh grass, without one drop of water visible. These sheets of water mark the course of a river, but each lake is separated by a dam of floating vegetation. The volume of water is very important, and a stream is running at the rate of three miles an hour. ”