Helmand River

“ It is easy to see that a good year of inundation extends the borders of the so-called lake to within the Naizar; and there are well-defined beds of dry canals intersecting the country, which prove the existence former y of an extensive water-system no longer prevailing. The main canal of Seistan, confounded by some writers with the parent river, bears the waters of the Helmund westward into the heart of the country. ”

“ As we come to the regularly curved southern shore of the lake, with its bank of sand, we see the well-known signs of a storm on the plain before us, white dust swirls, stirred up in spirals from the ground by the wind, like the smoke of a shot. After a time we find ourselves in the path of the storm—it will not need many such storms to break up the whole lake and drive its loosened ice-sheets to the eastern bank. We ride across the river Kyangdam-tsangpo, which comes from the Trans-Himalaya, and bivouac on its western terrace (15,548 feet) . ”

“ There is a second railway bridge at Haranpur on the Sind Ságar line, and a bridge of boats at Khusháb, in the Sháhpur district. The noblest and most-varied scenery in the north-west Himalaya is in the catchment area of the Jhelam. The Kashmír valley and the valleys which drain into the Jhelam from the north, the Liddar, the Loláb, the Sind, and the Kágan glen, display a wealth of beauty unequalled elsewhere. Nor does this river wholly lose its association with beauty in the plains. Its very rich silt gives the lands on its banks the green charm of rich crops and pleasant trees. ”

“ This upland basin of the Helmund to the west of Kabul and Ghazni, this cradle of a hundred affluents pouring down ice-cold water to the river, is but a huge extension southwards of the Hindu Kush, and from it emerge many of the great rivers of Afghanistan. To the north the rivers of Balkh and Khulm take a hurried start for the Oxus plains. Westward the Hari Rud streams off to Herat. South-westward extends the long curving line of the Helmund, and eastward flow the young branches of the Kabul. ”

“ From the great elevation and abrupt slope of the range which runs parallel to the Hanle river on the east, there can be no doubt that the spurs which it sends down on its north-east slope, towards the Indus, must be bold and rocky; and though the hills on the left bank of the Hanle river are much less elevated, yet they rise as they advance to the eastward. The descent of this river too, though very gentle in the upper part 160 of its course, while its valley is broad, is probably very abrupt in the last few miles, where its channel is rocky and its ravine narrow. ”

“ We draw near to a small projecting height, behind which the road runs to Kangan and Leh. Side branches debouch into the canal, but we make for a lake called Anchar; its water is greyish blue, and comes from the Sind, or Send as they here pronounce the name of the river.
After a while eddies and sandbanks show that we are in the river. The sun has set; the summer evening is quiet and peaceful, only the gnats buzz over the water.
Though the rowers work steadily, putting forth all their strength, we make slow progress, for the current is strong 33 against us. ”

“ This river, rising in the Taimani country, flows past Farah and Lash into the Hamun at its north-west angle, after a southerly course 200 miles in length. Its volume varies with the seasons. The water is usually clear and not quite drinkable for, after the main stream has been exhausted by the fields, the pools which remain in its deeper parts quickly become stagnant. In the spring it is a wide, deep river, always with sufficient water for irrigation in its course: even when nearly dry water is to be found by digging a foot into the river-bed. ”

“ In mountainous districts landslips sometimes occur and block the valley of a stream which then forms a lake. The water gradually rises and eventually flows over the dam and sweeps it away causing a flood, which is of great suddenness and height but decreases very quickly in height as it travels down the valley. In a case which occurred in the Himalayas in 1888 the inhabitants of the valleys, from the dam to the point where the river debouches from the hills, were compelled by Government to vacate all habitations below the probable level of the flood, and no loss of life occurred. ”

“ Either separate or together they make their way with straight determination westward towards Herat. South of this curious ditch rise the many streamlets which work their way, sometimes through comparatively open valleys where the floor level has been raised by the centuries of detritus, sometimes through steep and narrow gorges where the harder rock of the plateau formation presents more difficulties to erosion, into the great Helmund basin. These are affluents of the Adraskand, the Farah Rud, and the Helmund, all of which have the same bourne in the Seistan depression. ”

“ These mountain streams must rush their waters through magnificent gorges, for the peaks which soar above them rise to 13,000 feet in altitude, and 516 the country is described as inconceivably rugged and wild. This is the real centre and home of the Hazara communities, and, in spite of the fact that there are certain well-ascertained tracks traversing the country and connecting the Helmund with the valley of the Hari Rud, we know that for the greater part of the year they must be closed to all traffic. They are of no importance outside purely local interests. ”

“ You shall travel eastward seven days, crossing the desert and plunging into a dense forest. At night you shall rest—except for the seventh night, when you shall push on after the fall of the sun. About the twelfth hour you will come to a narrow, rapid stream. The name of this river is Hilnardees, which means in our language ‘many-visioned’. On the west bank you will find a small boat. Push out into the darkness, and without effort you will be swept downstream with the current. It will not be far before you come to a place where the river branches into three parts. In the dark you will not know ”

“ 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. ”

“ At Hambleden the influence of Henley begins to be felt, and above Henley we enter on another zone. Nowhere else on the river are to be found so many fascinating spots lying in the stream; certainly, no other part offers so many tempting backwaters. This is the zone for those who love the country pure and simple, and who can put up cheerfully with the inconveniences attendant on the procuring of supplies, for the sake of the quiet, marshy meadows. ”

“ Times of rising water—when the sluice-gates above had been opened—were the most prolific of opportunities. Logs rarely jam on rising water, for the simple reason that constantly the surface area of the river is increasing, thus tending to separate the logs. On the other hand, falling water, tending to crowd the drive closer together, is especially prolific of trouble. Therefore, on flood water the watchers scattered along the stretches of the river had little to do—save strand Heinzman's logs for him. ”

“ The Cabul River is now dwarfed to a shallow streamlet which a child could wade, and the paltry bridges of masonry which span it are half ruinous, and of a style which any Western engineer would despise. The fact that there is a river at all is only patent when we come suddenly upon it ”

“ For irrigation, there are times when the canal should be kept low so that large quantities of water may not have to be passed into the drainages when they are already filled by rain-water; for navigation the canal should always be kept up to its full level. For irrigation, even when the river or other source of supply is low, it is often necessary to go on letting as much water as possible out of the canal to supply crops, thereby reducing the level and the depth in the canal, especially at its end ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nevertheless, although in open water, we now find ourselves prisoners in a species of lake, as we are completely shut in by a serious dam of dense rafts of vegetation that have been borne forward and tightly compressed by the great force of this new river. It is simply ridiculous to suppose that this river can ever be rendered navigable. One or two vessels, if alone, would be utterly helpless, and might be entirely destroyed with their crews by a sudden change that would break up the country and inclose them in a trap from which they could never escape. ”

“ Then the howling, desiccating winds of the north-west have carried back sand-waves and silt, burying villages and filling the 203 atmosphere for hundreds of miles southward with impalpable dust, crossing the Helmund deserts even to the frontier of India. There is no measurable scale for the force of the Seistan winds. They scoop up the sand and sweep clean the surface of the earth, polishing the rounded edges of the ragged walls of the Helmund valley ruins. ”

“ High floods rise quite 50 feet above the normal level, so that the gorge then encloses a torrent of waters from 150 to 250 feet in depth.† [9]
After passing this point and entering the open country, the river widens out and flows by the old zamindari strongholds of Pólavaram and Gútála and the picturesque and sacred islands of Mahánandisvaram and Pattisam.‡ [10] At Rajahmundry it is nearly two miles wide, and some five miles further down, at Dowlaishweram, at the head of the delta, it is crossed by the celebrated anicut which renders its waters at last available for irrigation. ”

“ It is these watercourses which make Sherpur so uncomfortable just now. The soil is light and porous, and has all been under irrigation for vine and wheat culture; and as the channels are raised a foot or so higher than the fields, and steady little streams are coursing along from the higher level of the Cabul river, the whole place is damp and excessively cold. The water lies in places only a foot from the surface, and, near the eastern end of the cantonments, bursts forth in a spring, proving how saturated the subsoil must be. ”

“ Next day we rise 2000 feet higher, and redescend 6500 feet to the banks of the Kischanganga, the chief affluent of the Jhelam, running mostly parallel to the course of the latter stream. Then we undulate—if so soft a term be applicable to a route so sharply, abruptly and irregularly serrate—along the spurs which border the river, now in the forest and now on a bleak plateau where careful irrigation avails to grow nothing less hardy than millet, peas and buckwheat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Seventh Bridge, Sirinugger.
Here the river ceases to be navigable, and abandons itself for a short time to irregular and wanton habits, before finally sowing its wild mountain oats, and becoming the staid and sedate Jhelum of the Plains. Unlike some rivers, the Jhelum contains more water in the middle of summer than at other times. Its principal resources are the snows, and these mighty masses are so wrapped up in their own frigid magnificence that it requires a good deal of warm persuasion from the sun to melt their icy hearts to tears. ”

“ King, 'the pent-up waters tear their way with, I have been told, a surface so strangely concave on the cross section that adventurous boatmen glide along the bottom of a trough whose sides rise up to a good height and hide away the immediate banks; and out of this gorge away towards the open country of the Gódávari district the river has such a fall that the sensation produced on the mind of the traveller is said to be that of sliding down an inclined plane.'* [8] Native boatmen are much afraid of navigating the river at such times ”

“ The canals which branch off from the Helmund, bearing the waters of that river throughout the heart of the country, date back to a period which itself is long prior to either Persian or Afghan conquest. The systems in vogue to-day are hardly an improvement upon those earlier waterworks; there is no doubt that the region might be made the centre of an exceptionally fertile oasis if there were any enduring qualities in the local government, security for trade or opening for agricultural activity. Life in Seistan does not entail elaborate preparations. ”