Wood is not enthusiastic about Kunduz. He calls it one of the most wretched towns in Murad Beg's dominions. "The appearance of Kunduz accords with the habits of an Uzbek; and by its manner, poverty and filth, may be estimated the moral worth of its inhabitants." He thought a good deal of Murad Beg all the same, and could not deny his great abilities. "But with all his high qualifications Murad Beg is but the head of an organised banditti, a nation of plunderers, whom, however, none of the neighbouring states can exterminate." Murad Beg has joined his fathers long ago, but no recent account of Kunduz much alters Wood's opinion of it. The wretched Badakshanis whom Murad Beg conquered, and whom he set to live or die in the dank pestilential marshes which fill up the space between the Badakshan highlands and the Oxus, have since then been restored to their own country; and of Badakshan we heard enough from the Amir's officials connected with the Pamir Boundary Commission to lead us to believe in it as a veritable land of promise, a land whose natural beauty and fertility may be compared to that of Kashmir—but this was told of the mountain regions, not of the Oxus flats.
When Wood got away from Kunduz and travelled eastwards to Faizabad and Jirm he does rise to enthusiasm, and tells us of scenes of natural beauty which no European eye has seen since he passed that way. On December 11, in mid-winter, Wood started from Kunduz with the permission of Murad Beg to trace the "Jihun" to its source, and the story of this historical exploration will always be most excellent reading.
First crossing an open plain with a southern background of mountains, a plain of jungle grass, moist and unfavourable to human life, with stifling mists of vapour flitting uneasily before them, the party reached higher ground and the town of Khanabad. Behind Khanabad rises the isolated peak of Koh Umbar, 2500 feet above the plain, which appears to be a remarkable landmark in this region. It has never yet been fixed geographically. Passing through the low foot-hills surrounding this mountain, Wood emerged into the plain of Talikhan, and reached the ancient town of that name in a heavy downpour of winter rain. Here at once he encountered reminiscences of Greek occupation and claimants to the lineage of Alexander the Great. The trail of the Greek occupation of Baktria clings to Badakshan as does that of Nysa to the valleys of Kafiristan. The impression of Talikhan is summed up by Wood in the statement that it is a most disagreeable place in rainy weather. He might say the same of every town in Afghan Turkistan. He has much to say of Uzbek character and idiosyncrasies. In one respect he says that the habits of Uzbek children are superior to those of young Britons. They do not rob sparrows' nests! Here, too, Wood found himself on the track of Moorcroft. Striking eastward he crossed the Lataband Pass (since fixed at 5650 feet in height) and first encountered snow. From the pass he describes the surrounding view as glorious: "In every quarter snowclad peaks shot up into the sky," and he gives the name Khoja Mahomed to the range (unnamed in our maps) which crosses Badakshan from north-east to south-west and forms the chief water-parting of the country. Before him the Kokcha "rolled its green waters through the rugged valley of Duvanah." The summit of Lataband is wide and level and the descent eastwards comparatively easy.
Through the pretty vale of Mashad (where Wood's party crossed the Varsach River) to Teshkhan the road led generally over hilly country covered with snow; but leaving Teshkhan it rises over the pass of Junasdara (fixed by Wood at 6600 feet), crossing one of the great spurs of the Khoja Mahomed system, and descended to Daraim, "a valley scarce a bowshot across, but watered, as all the valleys in Badakshan are, by a beautiful stream of the purest water, and bordered, wherever there is soil, by a soft velvet turf." To Daraim succeeded the plain of Argu and the "wavy" district of Reishkhan, which reached to the valley of the Kokcha. So far, since leaving Talikhan, they had met with "no sign of man or beast," but the latter were occasionally in close proximity, for the path was made easy by hog tracks, and Wood has some grisly tales to tell about the ferocity of the wolves of the country. Junasdara he describes as a difficult or steep pass, but he notes the fact that Murad Beg had crossed it with artillery which left evidence in wheel tracks.
Of Faizabad, when Wood was there, "scarcely a vestige was left," and Jirm had become the capital of the country. But Faizabad has risen to importance since, and according to the reports of subsequent native explorers, has regained a good deal of its commercial importance. "Behind the site of the town the mountains are in successive ridges to a height of at least 2000 feet" (i.e. above the plain); "before it rolls the Kokcha in a rocky trench-like bed sufficiently deep to preclude all danger of inundation. Looking up the valley, the ruined and uncultivated gardens are seen to fringe the stream for a distance of two miles above the town." Faizabad is about 3950 feet above sea-level. Wood makes it about 500 feet lower, and his original observations were probably of more than equal value with those of subsequent native explorers. But certain recent improvements in exploring instruments, and certain refinements in computing the value of such observations, render the balance of probability in favour of the later records. Wood (as a sailor) was a professional observer, and where observations alone are concerned his own are excellent.
From Faizabad Wood went to Jirm, which he regarded as a more important position than Faizabad. Elsewhere an opinion has been expressed that Jirm was the ancient capital of the country. Wood took the shortest road to Jirm which leaves the Kokcha valley and passes over the Kasur spur, winding by a high and slippery path for some distance along the face of the hill. It was a two days' march. The fort at Jirm he describes as the most important in Murad Beg's dominions. His stay at Jirm gave him the opportunity of visiting the lapis-lazuli mines near the head of the Kokcha River under the shadow of the Hindu Kush just bordering Kafiristan. This experience was useful, for Wood not only contributes a most interesting account of the working of the mines, but places on record the impracticable nature of the route which follows the Kokcha River from its source above the mines to Jirm. Near the assumed source, and not far south of the mines, there are two passes across the Hindu Kush, viz. the Minjan, which connects with the well-known Dorah and leads to Chitral, and the Mandal, which unites the head of the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan with the Minjan sources of the Kokcha. The upper reaches of the Kokcha River form the Minjan valley. Sir George Robertson crossed the Mandal in 1889 and fixed its height at over 15,000 feet, and he places the head of the Minjan (or Kokcha) much farther south than it appears in our maps. As the Mandal Pass connects Kafiristan with the Minjan valley of the Kokcha (pronounced by Wood to be almost impracticable above Jirm), it is of no great geographical importance; nor, owing to the same impracticability, is the Minjan Pass itself of any great consequence, although it connects with Chitral. The Dorah (14,800 feet), on the other hand, links up Chitral with another branch of the Kokcha, passing by the populous commercial town of Zebak, and is consequently a pass to be reckoned with in spite of its altitude. It is, in short, the chief pass over the Hindu Kush directly connecting India with Badakshan; but a pass which is nearly as high as Mont Blanc affords no royal gateway through the mountains.
Wood had sufficiently indicated the nature of the Kokcha valley between Jirm and Minjan. At the point where the mines occur it is about 200 yards wide. On both sides the mountains are "high and naked," and the river flows in a trough 70 feet below the bed of the valley. We know that it is not a practicable route. It is, however, much to be regretted that no modern explorer has touched the valley of Anjuman to the west of Minjan, which, whilst it is perhaps the main contributor to the waters of the Kokcha, also appears to have contained a recognised route in mediæval times. "If you wish not to go to destruction, avoid the narrow valley of Koran," is a native warning quoted by Wood, which seems to apply to the upper Kokcha. As a passable khafila route, Idrisi writes that from Andarab to Badakshan towards the east is a four days' journey. Andarab (the ancient site) being fixed at the junction of the Kasan stream with the Andarab River, the only possible route eastwards would be to the head of the Andarab at Khawak, and thence over the Nawak Pass into the Anjuman valley. Nor can the Nawak (which is as well known a pass as the Khawak) have any raison d'être unless it connects with that valley. There is, however, the possibility of a wrong inference from Idrisi's vague statement. "Badakshan" (which was represented by either Jirm or Faizabad) is actually east of Andarab, but to reach it by the obvious route of the lowlands, following the Kunduz River and ultimately striking eastwards, would involve starting from Andarab to the west of north. But just as the Mandal leading into the Minjan valley opens up no useful route in spite of being a well-known pass, so may the Nawak lead to nothing really practicable in Anjuman. This, indeed, is probably the case, but Anjuman remains to be explored.
Returning to Jirm, Wood awaited the opportunity for his historic exploration of the Oxus. This occurred at the end of January 1838, when news came to Jirm that the Oxus was frozen above Darwaz. The only route open to travellers in the snow time of that region is the bed of the frozen river, and Wood determined to make the best use of the opportunity. He was anxious to visit the ruby mines of the Oxus valley, but in this he did not succeed, owing to the extreme difficulties of the route following the river from its great bend northward to the district of Gharan, in which these mines are situated. He met the remnants of a party returning from Gharan which had lost nearly half its numbers from an avalanche when he reached Zebak, and wisely determined to expend his efforts in following up the course of the river to its source, rather than tempt Providence by a dangerous detour. To reach Zebak from Jirm it was necessary to follow the Kokcha to its junction with the Wardoj and then turn up that valley to Zebak. This journey in winter, with the biting blasts of the glacier-bred winds of the Hindu Kush in their teeth, was sufficiently trying. These devastated regions seem to be never free from the plague of wind. It is bad enough in the Pamirs in summer, but in winter when superadded to the effects of a cold registering 6° below zero it must have been maddening. There was no great difficulty in crossing the divide between Zebak (a small but not unimportant town) and the elbow of the Oxus River at Ishkashm.
Once again since the days of Wood a party of Europeans, which included two well-known geographers (Lockhart and Woodthorpe, both of whom have since gone to their rest), reached Ishkashm in 1886, and they were treated there with anything but hospitality. Wood seemed to have fared better. With the authority of Murad Beg to back him, and his own tact and determination to carry him through, he succeeded in overcoming all obstacles, and from point to point he made his way to where the Oxus forks at Kila Panja. From Ishkashm to Kila Panja the valley was fairly wide and open, and here for the first time he met those interesting nomadic folk the Kirghiz.
Wood's observations on the people he met are always acute and interesting, but he seems rather to have been influenced (as he admits that he may have been) by his Badakshani guides in framing his estimate of Kirghiz character. Thieves and liars they may be. These characteristics are common in High Asia, but even in these particulars they compare favourably with Uzbeks and Afghans generally. At any rate he trusted them, and it was with their assistance that he reached the source of the Oxus. Without them in a world of snow-covered hills and depressions, with every halting-place buried deep and not a trace of a track to be seen, he would have fared badly. At Kila Panja he was faced with a difficulty which gave him anxious consideration. Could he have guessed what issues would thereafter hang on a decision to that momentous question—which branch of the Oxus led to its real source—it would have caused him even greater anxiety. Ultimately he followed the northern branch which waters the Great Pamir, and after almost incredible exertion in floundering through snowdrifts and scratching his way along the ice road of the river surface, on February 19, 1838, he overlooked that long narrow expanse of frozen water which is now known as Victoria Lake.