Khabur River

“ I had long wished to visit the banks of the Khabour. This river, the Chaboras of the Greek geographers, and the Habor, or Chebar, of the Samaritan captivity [103] , rises in the north of Mesopotamia, and flowing to the west of the Sinjar hill, falls into the Euphrates near the site of the ancient city of Carchemish [104] or Circesium, still known to the Bedouins by the name of Carkeseea. As it winds through the midst of the desert, and its rich pastures are the resort of wandering tribes of Arabs, it is always difficult of access to the traveller. ”

“ The long desert march from Kosheh to Sadin Fanti was the only natural difficulty by land. Although the river from Kosheh to Kerma is broken by continual rapids, it is, with one interval, freely navigable at half Nile. The Amara Cataract, ten miles beyond Kosheh, is easily ascended by sailing boats with a fair wind, and by steamers without assistance. From Amara to the Kaibar Cataract stretches a reach of sixty-five miles of open water. The Kaibar Cataract is, during the flood, scarcely any hindrance to navigation ”

“ The country through which the White Nile passes is very unsuited to large irrigation works. Much of it is swamp, and the low slope of the land is ill-adapted for canals. The soil, too, is poor and light compared with the rich alluvial tracts on the Blue [119] Nile, which would of course receive no benefit. Practically only the provinces north of Khartoum would receive any benefit from the increased supply, and in them the cultivable land can never be more than a mere strip along the river, so circumscribed are they by the desert ridges. ”

“ In the western parts of the system they mostly go to feed the Kara-muren or the Cherchen-darya, while farther east they flow down into some larger self-contained basin of internal drainage, such as the Achik-kol, the two lakes Kara-kol, or the Ghaz-kol, and even yet farther east make their way, some of them into the lakes of the Tsaidam depression or become lost in its sands or in those of the Kum-tagh desert on the north, or go to feed the headstreams of the great rivers, the Hwang-ho (Yellow River) and the Yangtsze-kiang (Blue River) in the south. ”

“ I don't see how we can hope to get off with less: and that being so, I believe it would be better to take on the whole at once. North of the Shatt-al-Hai line (i.e. Kut-Nasiryah) it would be very exhausting to go, and very awkward politically, as you soon get among the holy places of the Shiahs, especially Karbala, which is their Mecca. But it's no use blinking the fact that a river is a continuous whole, and experience shows that the power which controls the mouth is sooner or later forced to climb to its source, especially when its up-stream neighbours are hostile and not civilised. ”

“ 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 Egyptian farmer knows well the advantages which he reaps from the overflowing of the Nile, and he cuts many canals to lead the water to his fields, and builds dams to retain it when the river goes down. But the overflowing of the river, even when helped by canals and dams, is not enough for the proper irrigation of the land, and the Egyptian farmers and field-labourers have to spend much of their time in raising water from the river, or the canals, and distributing it over the fields, especially upon the higher ground, which the annual flood does not reach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are bound to control the bit from Basra to the sea to protect existing interests. The whole future of that area—as of all Mesopotamia—depends on a scientific scheme of drainage and irrigation. At present half the country is marsh and half desert. Why? Because under Turkish rule the river is never dredged, the banks are never repaired, stray Arabs can cut haphazard canals and leave them to form marshes, and so on. Now an irrigation and drainage scheme is vitally necessary, but (1) it involves a large outlay; (2) to be effective it must start a long way up-stream ”

“ Near Bagdad the two giant rivers, after draining Eastern Asia Minor, Armenia and Kurdistan, approach quite near together; from thence the main streams are connected by several channels and intermittent watercourses, the chief of which is the Shatt-el Hai. At Kurna the two rivers unite to form the Shatt-el-Arab which traverses a flat, fertile plain dotted with villages and covered with artificially irrigated meadow-lands and extensive date groves. As far up as Bagdad the river is navigable throughout the year for steamers of considerable size. ”

“ The backbone of the district is a high and dry tract known as the Ganjí or Bald Bár. The advent of the Lower Bárí Doáb Canal will entirely change the character of this desert. Its south-eastern boundary is a high bank marking the course of the old bed of the Biás. Below this is the wide Sutlej valley. The part beyond the influence of river floods depends largely on the Khánwáh and Sohág Pára inundation Canals. The Ráví valley to the north-west of the Bár is naturally fertile and has good well irrigation. But it has suffered much by the failure of the Ráví floods. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Turning north-east the channel becomes narrower and deeper, and is characterized by occasional reaches of papyrus. Finally, the Ghazal turns east and again becomes broader until Lake No is reached. As a rule the banks in this section are marked by anthills and scrub. The anthills in one valley are so close together "that they somewhat resemble a gigantic graveyard." (Sir William Garstin) . The rise of the Ghazal river in flood time is barely 3 ft., a depth sufficient, however, to place an enormous area of country under water. ”

“ It runs quicker than the Indus, or any of the Punjab rivers, and its banks on both sides are open and richly irrigated by larger canals of running water, dug with great labour; on the right bank, from Mooltan upwards, there is a desert of low sand-hills, which does not admit of cultivation, and presses in upon the cultivated land at the short distance of two miles from the river. ”

“ The rivers of Bokhara belong to the Amu Daria system, the Oxus flowing for 490 versts through the Khanate itself. Constant demands for purposes of irrigation are made upon its waters as well as upon the waters of its many tributaries, [Pg 26] a fact which rapidly exhausts the lesser streams. In the western portion of the Khanate the Zerafshan river is the great artery; and although it possesses a direct stream only 214 versts in length it supplies a system of canals, the aggregate length of which amounts to more than 1000 versts. ”

“ The land improves as we ascend. Above the junction of the Khabour with the main stream, the left bank is mostly cultivable. Much of the land is flat and well-wooded, while often there are broad stretches of open ground, well adapted for pasturage. A considerable population seems in ancient times to have peopled the valley, which did not depend wholly or even mainly on its own products, but was enriched by the important traffic which was always passing up and down the great river. ”

“ Nothing would be more simple than to form a succession of weirs across the Rahad and Dinder, that would enable the entire country to be irrigated at any season of the year, but there is not an engineering work of any description throughout Upper Egypt, beyond the sageer or water-wheel of the Nile. Opposite Abou Harraz, the Blue Nile was a grand river, about five hundred yards in width; the banks upon the north side were the usual perpendicular cliffs of alluvial soil, but perfectly bare of trees; while, on the south, the banks were ornamented with nabbuk bushes and beautiful palms. ”

“ The current in flood is not more than 2 knots per hour. The Jur River is navigable for steamers from its mouth as far as the “Poste des Rapides” at Rafili, and probably above this point by light draught steamers to Khojali, from August till November. In the tableland and higher plateaux of the watershed, these rivers are fed by many streams running down from the slopes and hills. On the other hand, in the lower steppes to the north, the water runs up into many khors and swamps, which break away from the banks. ”

“ The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of the Safed Koh; and in breaking through it is forced to the northward in a curved channel or trough, deeply sunk in the mountains between terrific cliffs and precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the opportunity. ”

“ From the north the snow-capped peaks of Kafiristan look down upon it, and from among the forest-clad valleys at the foot of these peaks two important river systems take their rise, the Alingar and the Alishang, which, uniting, join the Kabul River in the flat plain, where villages now crowd in and dispute each acre of productive soil. It is difficult to reach the Laghman valley from the west. ”

“ Here terminated the desert, and with it the fear of a death from thirst, robbers, wind, or other hardships. We had now come positively to the frontiers of Bokhara, properly so called; and when, {164} after two leagues' journey, we reached Khakemir (the village where the Kervanbashi resided) , we found ourselves already in the middle of a country tolerably well cultivated. The whole district is watered by canals connected with the river Zereshan. ”

“ The only ones of any importance are in the Pesháwar Valley. These draw their supplies from the Kábul, Bára, and Swát rivers, but the works supplied by the first two streams only command small areas. The Lower Swát Canal was begun in 1876, but the tribesmen were hostile and the diggers had to sleep in fortified enclosures. The work was not opened till 1885. A reef in the river has made it possible to dispense with a permanent weir. The country is not an ideal one for irrigation, being much cut up by ravines. ”

“ Soon the channel is filled up with the flood, the banks of mud are undermined, and fall down in large masses into the waters, where they are speedily broken up and converted into silt, the finer portions of which being carried along finally enter the Nile, and impart to its waters much of the turgid character for which they are known in Lower Egypt. [5] The river now becomes a great fertilising agent, and when allowed to flow over the cultivated fields imparts the necessary moisture; so that, under the influence of a powerful sun, two to three crops can be annually gathered off the land ”

“ Two hours from Faccardine's grove brought us to the fifth caphar, and another little hour to the river Damer or Tamyras, the former being its modern, the latter its ancient name. It is a river apt to swell much upon sudden rains; in which case, precipitating itself from the mountains with great rapidity, it has been fatal to many passengers. ”

“ As the river swells, these canals fill with water, which goes seeking a level to the foot of the mountains; so that now the flood, which begins to restagnate towards the bank of the river, acquires no motion, as the calishes are formed at right angles to the stream. Sometimes, indeed, the river is so high, when the rains in Ethiopia are excessive, that the back-water joins the current of the Nile, when immediately it communicates its motion to the stagnant water, and sweeps away every thing that is planted into the sea. It is a mistake then to assert,—the fuller the Nile, the better for Egypt. ”

“ Reeds and water-plants grew on its margin, and its smooth surface reflected the rugged outline of the hills beyond. The Waterless River is about two miles in breadth, and appears to have been at one time the bed of a large stream. [179] It crosses all the caravan routes in the desert, and is supposed to extend from the Nile to the Red Sea. It may have been the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage through the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan and Kalabshee. A geological exploration of this part of Africa could not fail to produce very interesting results. ”

“ The old stagers always seem thinking of some point a little way ahead which they would much prefer to have behind them. Sometimes it is a bad bit of road which can only be traversed in broad daylight; sometimes a river which may suddenly be rendered unfordable by the intervention of an unforeseen spate. On this stage the unknown factor was the conduct of the Khozr river, a much more considerable stream than the Gomel, which lay some four hours further east ”