A JOURNEY

TO THE

SOURCE OF THE RIVER OXUS.

BY CAPTAIN JOHN WOOD,

INDIAN NAVY.

NEW EDITIon, edited BY HIS SON.

WITH AN ESSAY ON THE

GEOGRAPHY OF THE VALLEY OF THE OXUS.

BY COLONEL HENRY YULE, C.B.

WITH MAPS.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1872.

[The right of Translation is reserved]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IN bringing a Second Edition of " A Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Source of the River Oxus" before the Public, I have avoided any great change in the text; for although the years that haye elapsed since its first appearance have brought with them vast changes, and although many, aye most of the actors have passed away, still great interest cannot but attach itself to an early explorer's description of men and things, and I have on this account refrained from expunging passages that may be familiar to some of my readers. I have thus been enabled to preserve the continuity of the story throughout, and where I have been able to collect later information of a nature ́likely to interest those who take up the book the reader is referred to notes.

The attention that has of late been directed to Central Asia has induced Mr. Murray to publish the present work (the first edition having been out of print); and it is no small source of gratification to me to be able to point out that my father's reports have been fully confirmed by later travellers.

Thanks principally to the Russian forgeries attributed to Klaproth, the geography of that portion of Central Asia treated of in the following pages was for a considerable number of years shrouded in mystery, and Wood's account was subjected to doubt and suspicion of inaccuracy. Fortunately however the labours of the Mirza, of Pundit Manphúl, and of other Eastern