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The original diversion was artificial, and the dikes which direct it into the Aral are said to be maintained with difficulty. It has been proposed to send an expedition to remove these barriers and turn the river into its former bed. Coupled with this project is another to divert the course of the Syr-Daria and make it an affluent of the Oxus.
Perhaps they remember that the Terrestrial Paradise is not far off a beautiful garden between the Tigris and Euphrates, unless it was between the Amou and the Syr-Daria. Perhaps they have not forgotten that mother Eve lived in this preadamite garden, and that if she had been thrashed a little before her first fault, she would probably not have committed it. But we need not enlarge on that.
But within this realm of sand lie a number of oases whose soil is well watered and of the highest fertility. Two mighty rivers traverse these lands, the Amu-Daria once known as the Oxus and the Syr-Daria formerly the Jaxartes, both of which flow into the Sea of Aral.
In 1835 a fort was built on the eastern shore of the Caspian and several armed steamers were placed on its waters. Four years later war broke out with Khiva, and the khan was forced to give up some Russian prisoners he had seized. In 1847 a fort was built on the Sea of Aral, at the mouth of the Syr-Daria, whose waters formed the only safe avenue to the desert-girdled khanate of Khokand.
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