(anciently the Oxus), and the Sir or Synuti (anciently the Jaxartes),
carry their waters across the desert, and pour them into the basin of
the Aral. Several others of less volume, as the Murg-ab, or river of
Merv, the Abi Meshed or Tejend, the Heri-rud, the river of Maymene, the
river of Balkh, the river of Khulm, the Shehri-Sebz, the Ak Su or river
of Bokhara, the Kizil Deria, etc., flow down from the high ground
into the plain, where their waters either become lost in the sands, or
terminate in small salt pools. Along the banks of these streams the soil
is fertile, and where irrigation is employed the crops are abundant. In
the vicinity of Khiva, at Kermineh on the Bokhara river, at Samarcand,
at Balkh--and in a few other places, the vegetation is even luxuriant;
gardens, meadows, orchards, and cornfields fringe the river-bank; and
the natives see in such favored spots resemblances of Paradise! Often,
however, even the river-banks themselves are uncultivated, and the
desert creeps up to their very edge; but this is in default, not in
spite, of human exertion. A well-managed system of irrigation could,
in almost every instance, spread on either side of the streams a broad
strip of verdure.

In the time of the Fifth Monarchy, the tract which has been here
described was divided among three nations. The region immediately to the
east of the Caspian, bounded on the north by the old course of the Oxus
and extending eastward to the neighborhood of Merv, though probably
not including that city, was Chorasmia, the country of the Chorasmians.
Across the Oxus to the north-east was Sogdiana (or Sugd), reaching
thence to the Jaxartes, which was the Persian boundary in this
direction. South of Sogdiana, divided from it by the Middle and Upper
Oxus, was Bactria, the country of the Bakhtars or Bactrians. The
territory of this people reached southward to the foot of the
Paropamisus, adjoining Chorasmia and Aria on the west, and on the south