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A Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Source of the River Oxus
Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. I (alia?Manufacture of earthenware?Chunniah?Ruins of Kho- (liU)i'nl?Altars of Alexander?Otters?Black partridge?Castle at Sihwan?River and crops?Absence of trees?Pulla-fish? Fisheries?Dur-myani?Wulli Mohamed Laghari?Arrival of L)r. Lord?Arore?Mulala?Importunity of Fakirs?Anecdote ?B'hkur, Rori, Sukur?Sand storm?Battle of Sukur?A Mohamedan's beard. Separated from head-quarters, and by the nature of my employment restricted to the river, our intercourse with the Sindis was now mostly confined to river-lying tribes. The country indeed holds out no temptation to stray inland, and but few of its towns repay the visitant for the trouble he is at in getting to them. Halla and Khodabad we had been informed were exceptions; and on the 21st of February, being abreast of these places, I paid them a visit. Halla is divided into the old and new town. The last division is much the larger of the two, and is the most considerable place between Ha'iderabad and Sihwan. Like the last-mentioned town, it derives no small degree of importance from the shrine of a Mohamedan saint, that of Pir Mukdum Nu. The land around is highly impregnated with salt, and what little cultivation I noticed is confined to an old bed of the Indus, close to the smaller Halla. The bazar is partially roofed, but howevereffectual the covering may be as a defence against the sun, it does not keep out rain, for when we were here the ground beneath it was a perfect puddle. The bustle of its bazar showed that the place was thriving; and if agriculture does not flourish, the mechanical arts apparently do. Halla has been long noted for its excellent earthenware and Sindian caps. The latter, being national, are worn by all classes, rich and poor, privileged and oppressed. The prosperity of the cap-maker is evinced...
98 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1841
17 people want to read
About the author
John Wood
1 bookJohn Wood (1812 – 14 November 1871) was a Scottish naval officer, surveyor, cartographer and explorer, principally remembered for his exploration of central Asia.
After schooling at Perth Academy, he joined the British Indian Navy and soon demonstrated a flair for surveying. Many of the maps of southern Asia which he compiled remained standard for the rest of the nineteenth century.
In 1835, aged twenty-two, he commanded the first steamboat to paddle up the Indus River and surveyed the river as he went. Four years later, he led an expedition up the Pamir River to Lake Zorkul ("Wood's Lake"), which he took to be the source of River Oxus. He was the first European in the Pamir Mountains since Bento de Goes, and it was Wood who introduced the term "Roof of the World" for the Pamirs. The Royal Geographical Society recognised his work by awarding the 29-year-old "Lieutenant John Woods" its Patron's Medal in 1841 "for his journey to the source of the Oxus and for valuable labours on the Indus". [wikipedia]
After schooling at Perth Academy, he joined the British Indian Navy and soon demonstrated a flair for surveying. Many of the maps of southern Asia which he compiled remained standard for the rest of the nineteenth century.
In 1835, aged twenty-two, he commanded the first steamboat to paddle up the Indus River and surveyed the river as he went. Four years later, he led an expedition up the Pamir River to Lake Zorkul ("Wood's Lake"), which he took to be the source of River Oxus. He was the first European in the Pamir Mountains since Bento de Goes, and it was Wood who introduced the term "Roof of the World" for the Pamirs. The Royal Geographical Society recognised his work by awarding the 29-year-old "Lieutenant John Woods" its Patron's Medal in 1841 "for his journey to the source of the Oxus and for valuable labours on the Indus". [wikipedia]
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February 25, 2026
In 2008, Alice Albinia published Empires of the Indus, a fantastic travelogue along the Mighty India from its Mouth near Karachi to is source in Tibet. The book, highly acclaimed is more than a travelogue as the author passes through Sind, Punjab, Khyber, Afghanistan, India and Tibet recounting the geopolitics, geohistory and geocommerce of the river that has tantalized the western imagination and lent India her name. Exactly 167 years ago in 1841, a travelogue, which was part of the mission to Afghanistan undertaken by the British East India Company was published by Lieut. John Wood of the East India Company's Navy, and led by Lieut-Col. Alexander Burns. David Gilmartin, writing in 2011 for The Historian claims that even though Albinia enjoyed a deeper engagement with culture and history, her view shares something in common with many earlier imperial travellers. This point is quite congruous with Wood's "A journey to the source of the river Oxus".
Oxus, or Amu Darya is an arterial river in Central Asia rising in the Pamir Plateau in Afghanistan and flowing north before emptying into the Aral Sea. However, the river does not fall into the Aral Sea today, but has a mouth that's dried up. Aral Sea used to be the fourth largest inland water body on the planet, but the Soviets wrought the worst man-made ecological disaster in the 1960s when they diverted the waters of the Oxus and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) to irrigate cotton farms, thus drying up the Aral by almost 90%, and making it the graveyard of the ships.
Ancient Bronze Age civilizations thrived along the Oxus, especially the Bactria-Margiana Civilization that date back to 2400 BCE. While, Oxus as a name is Latin, the classical antiquity refers to it as Chaksu or Vakshu in Sanskrit, or as Wehrod in Middle Persian. The name Amu Darya is a derivative of Amul (today's Turkmenabad, and formerly Chaharjoy), and Darya, which is a Sea in Persian.
When John Wood began his mission in 1836, the instructions were to ascend the Indus from near Karachi all the way up to Attock, to measure its navigability. It's this part of the journey, where cultural intercourses happen that reminds one of the much later written book by Alice Albinia. At Attock, Wood changed his direction, and moved into the region of Kunduz in Afghanistan. It was in the third year of the mission in 1838 that he discovered what he thought of as the origin of the Oxus in a region that is known as Wakhan, and today as the Wakhan Corridor, the place where Afghanistan meets China geographically. But, was this sheet of ice really the source of the Oxus? We will come to the conundrum in a while. Back to the narrative of Wood, which is supremely drafted with the keenest of observations on topography, hydrology, climate, commercial activity, culture, religion, history and politics, his expedition through the sublime landscape, yet haunted by miles upon miles of desolation, surrounded by strangers and yet guaranteed of security by the local rulers, brutes in the form of ferocious wolves, and faunal fellow travelers like the double-humped furry camels, horses, dogs and donkeys make for a vivid portrayal. Wood was one of the first Europeans (likely the first British) to set for in these remote parts of today's Pakistan and Afghanistan. Along the way, he established camaraderie with different ethnic groups of Central Asia, including the Uzbekistan, Tajiks, Hazaras, Kyrgyz, Kaffirs, and Kazakhs. He lodged and boarded with them, witnessing a culture totally alienating from the one he c was used to in Europe, or for that matter even as a naval officer in Bombay. The 450 odd pages have a few interesting anecdotes, like meeting with a chief whip claimed to a descendant of Alexander the Great.
The place which Wood claimed to be the source of Oxus was Lake Zorkul, which was later rechristened Lake Victoria in honour of her Majesty, though Wood himself preferred the local name. A paper was read as part of the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1838 by Lt. John Wood himself, where he said,
"This celebrated river (the Oxus) rises in the elevated region of Pameer in Sinkoal. It issues from as sheet of water, encircled on all sides, except the west, by hills, through which the infant river runs; commencing is course at the great elevation of 15600 feet above the level of the sea, or within a few feet of the height of Mont Blanc. To this sheet of water, Lt. Wood proposes to assign the name of Lake Victoria, in honour of Her Majesty".
The chapter was as good as closed with the discovery, until George Curzon in 1896, used the definition of the source, which is the point farthest from the mouth as well as the point highest in the river system to conclude that the sheet of ice discovered by Wood was downstream from an ice cave under Wakhjir Pass, and thereby also neutralizing the claim made in the 1870s about Lake Chaqmaqtin as the source. But carthographically, none of these too meet the criteria set by the coordinates as discovered a century later. Expeditions since have also not been very convincing, though some seem to reach closer than others.
But why were so many expeditions carried out to determine the source, apart from scholarly, academic and geographical reasons? The rationale in the nineteenth century was concentrated on the Great Game, a nineteenth century rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia with three potential to threaten the British colony of India and her interests in the Gulf. Coined by Arthur Conolly, and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his "Kim", the game was peaking in the second half of the century when the two adversaries signed the Anglo-Russian Agreement in 1873, that defined the Oxus as the northern border of Afghanistan and thus the dividing line between the British and Russian spheres of influence. The river's singularity as the topographical reference to border was reiterated in subsequent treaties. Delimiting these frontiers was problematic due to the dispute over the source of the Oxus, as this determined the primary tributary, and thus, even to the present day, the international border line. Accepting Lake Chaqmaqtin as the source would have stretched the Afghanistan border into today's Tajikistan, a point contended by the Russians and subsequently the Soviets until Tajikistan gained independence in the early 1990s. The British would have had problems accepting Curzon's ice cave, for it would have pulled the border closer to British India and today's Durand Line, a point still hotly debated between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This contraction could also have dealt a death blow to the erection of the Wakhan Corridor as a buffer zone between the two greatest empires of the nineteenth century.
I permitted myself some latitude and jumped the gun. Getting back to John Wood's highly engrossing work, his travels are not merely personal, but community driven, infused with a moral certitude, and sensibility that overcome the tragic ordeals he had to deal with, like the earthquake where he witnessed one-third of the population perish high on the Hindu Kush, or half the village flattened, slave traders that violate the Mohammedan teachings, bandits freewheeling the desolated landscape, or the inebriated and belligerant Frenchman. On the humane side, generous families, and their hospitality, despite poor in resources is a much frequent occurrence in the book that otherwise goes into the chills and the cold.
Amu Darya, a major lifeline of the Central Asian republics, cradle of ancient civilizations, birther, destroyer and keeper of dynasties, unfortunately, falls 200 km short of its original mouth, the Aral Sea, and dries out in Aralkum, the newest desert in the world at Kok Su. The Source, though, is yet elusive.
Oxus, or Amu Darya is an arterial river in Central Asia rising in the Pamir Plateau in Afghanistan and flowing north before emptying into the Aral Sea. However, the river does not fall into the Aral Sea today, but has a mouth that's dried up. Aral Sea used to be the fourth largest inland water body on the planet, but the Soviets wrought the worst man-made ecological disaster in the 1960s when they diverted the waters of the Oxus and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) to irrigate cotton farms, thus drying up the Aral by almost 90%, and making it the graveyard of the ships.
Ancient Bronze Age civilizations thrived along the Oxus, especially the Bactria-Margiana Civilization that date back to 2400 BCE. While, Oxus as a name is Latin, the classical antiquity refers to it as Chaksu or Vakshu in Sanskrit, or as Wehrod in Middle Persian. The name Amu Darya is a derivative of Amul (today's Turkmenabad, and formerly Chaharjoy), and Darya, which is a Sea in Persian.
When John Wood began his mission in 1836, the instructions were to ascend the Indus from near Karachi all the way up to Attock, to measure its navigability. It's this part of the journey, where cultural intercourses happen that reminds one of the much later written book by Alice Albinia. At Attock, Wood changed his direction, and moved into the region of Kunduz in Afghanistan. It was in the third year of the mission in 1838 that he discovered what he thought of as the origin of the Oxus in a region that is known as Wakhan, and today as the Wakhan Corridor, the place where Afghanistan meets China geographically. But, was this sheet of ice really the source of the Oxus? We will come to the conundrum in a while. Back to the narrative of Wood, which is supremely drafted with the keenest of observations on topography, hydrology, climate, commercial activity, culture, religion, history and politics, his expedition through the sublime landscape, yet haunted by miles upon miles of desolation, surrounded by strangers and yet guaranteed of security by the local rulers, brutes in the form of ferocious wolves, and faunal fellow travelers like the double-humped furry camels, horses, dogs and donkeys make for a vivid portrayal. Wood was one of the first Europeans (likely the first British) to set for in these remote parts of today's Pakistan and Afghanistan. Along the way, he established camaraderie with different ethnic groups of Central Asia, including the Uzbekistan, Tajiks, Hazaras, Kyrgyz, Kaffirs, and Kazakhs. He lodged and boarded with them, witnessing a culture totally alienating from the one he c was used to in Europe, or for that matter even as a naval officer in Bombay. The 450 odd pages have a few interesting anecdotes, like meeting with a chief whip claimed to a descendant of Alexander the Great.
The place which Wood claimed to be the source of Oxus was Lake Zorkul, which was later rechristened Lake Victoria in honour of her Majesty, though Wood himself preferred the local name. A paper was read as part of the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1838 by Lt. John Wood himself, where he said,
"This celebrated river (the Oxus) rises in the elevated region of Pameer in Sinkoal. It issues from as sheet of water, encircled on all sides, except the west, by hills, through which the infant river runs; commencing is course at the great elevation of 15600 feet above the level of the sea, or within a few feet of the height of Mont Blanc. To this sheet of water, Lt. Wood proposes to assign the name of Lake Victoria, in honour of Her Majesty".
The chapter was as good as closed with the discovery, until George Curzon in 1896, used the definition of the source, which is the point farthest from the mouth as well as the point highest in the river system to conclude that the sheet of ice discovered by Wood was downstream from an ice cave under Wakhjir Pass, and thereby also neutralizing the claim made in the 1870s about Lake Chaqmaqtin as the source. But carthographically, none of these too meet the criteria set by the coordinates as discovered a century later. Expeditions since have also not been very convincing, though some seem to reach closer than others.
But why were so many expeditions carried out to determine the source, apart from scholarly, academic and geographical reasons? The rationale in the nineteenth century was concentrated on the Great Game, a nineteenth century rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in Central Asia with three potential to threaten the British colony of India and her interests in the Gulf. Coined by Arthur Conolly, and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his "Kim", the game was peaking in the second half of the century when the two adversaries signed the Anglo-Russian Agreement in 1873, that defined the Oxus as the northern border of Afghanistan and thus the dividing line between the British and Russian spheres of influence. The river's singularity as the topographical reference to border was reiterated in subsequent treaties. Delimiting these frontiers was problematic due to the dispute over the source of the Oxus, as this determined the primary tributary, and thus, even to the present day, the international border line. Accepting Lake Chaqmaqtin as the source would have stretched the Afghanistan border into today's Tajikistan, a point contended by the Russians and subsequently the Soviets until Tajikistan gained independence in the early 1990s. The British would have had problems accepting Curzon's ice cave, for it would have pulled the border closer to British India and today's Durand Line, a point still hotly debated between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This contraction could also have dealt a death blow to the erection of the Wakhan Corridor as a buffer zone between the two greatest empires of the nineteenth century.
I permitted myself some latitude and jumped the gun. Getting back to John Wood's highly engrossing work, his travels are not merely personal, but community driven, infused with a moral certitude, and sensibility that overcome the tragic ordeals he had to deal with, like the earthquake where he witnessed one-third of the population perish high on the Hindu Kush, or half the village flattened, slave traders that violate the Mohammedan teachings, bandits freewheeling the desolated landscape, or the inebriated and belligerant Frenchman. On the humane side, generous families, and their hospitality, despite poor in resources is a much frequent occurrence in the book that otherwise goes into the chills and the cold.
Amu Darya, a major lifeline of the Central Asian republics, cradle of ancient civilizations, birther, destroyer and keeper of dynasties, unfortunately, falls 200 km short of its original mouth, the Aral Sea, and dries out in Aralkum, the newest desert in the world at Kok Su. The Source, though, is yet elusive.
September 12, 2025
A fascinating record of a unique journey, being the first english written record of much of the lands and practices he writes about. Wood brings a dry wit, and a rather competent air (although of course he would sound competent in his own book). I sincerely wish there was more published work by Wood as he seems a unique individual. If one enjoys this I recommend his second work Twelve Months in Wellington, even harder to locate (although on internet archive).
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