{"book":"adl0957","page":42,"text":"25\n\nBalkh and the Maimanah. But they often lose themselves\non their way and seldom reach the Oxus.\n\nThe Murghab (385 miles). -This is an important river of\nthis group, and takes its rise in the mass of mountains connecting\nthe eastern extremities of the Firoz Koh and the Tirband-i-\nTurkestan. At first it flows in a westerly direction, but after\nreceiving the waters of numerous tributaries, it turns north-west\nand passes the Afghan fortress of Bala Murghab and the border\npost of Karawalkhana. At the latter place it receives the waters\nof the Kansar, one of its affluents. Continuing in a north-\nwesterly direction it flows past Maruchak, lying on the right\nbank, where a short distance below, the Kashan flows into it. At\nMaruchak the river is the dividing point between Russia and\nAfghanistan for a distance of some 15 miles. The villages of\nPanjdeh and Akteppe are both situated upon the left bank of the\nriver, within the Russian territory. At Akteppe it receives the\nwaters of the Kushk river, which rises from the northern slopes\nof the Parapomisus range. From this point onward the Murghab\nflows in a due northerly direction, till it runs dry in the sands\nof the Karakum desert.\n\nThe country through which the river flows is, in the main,\na mixture of desert wastes and cultivated strips, with rising up-\nlands, carpeted in spring by bright flowers and hidden in winter\nby heavy snows. South-west of Bala Murghab the valley narrows\nto a defile. Through this the river rolls, tumbling with thunder-\nous clamour towards Panjdeh, where it acquires a considerable\nbreadth. The swiftness of its current and the uncertainty of its\ndepth, together with deep holes and masses of protruding rocks,\nadd to the hidden dangers from quicksands, and make fording\nintricate proceeding. Rafts and inflated skins are generally\nemployed by the local people while crossing this river.","chars":1876,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0957/00042.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":377,"title":"new guide to Afghanistan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0957/42","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0957/canvas/42","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/books/adl0957/","source_pdf":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/pdf/adl0957_download.pdf","rights":{"image":{"statement":"Public domain. NYU states: \"All works presented on this website are, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. The images available on this website may be freely reproduced, distributed and transmitted by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.\"","uri":"http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/","holder":"New York University Libraries","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/about.html","delivery":"Images are served from a copy mirrored by this project, not from NYU's servers, under the reproduction terms above.","endorsement":"This is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by New York University."},"text":{"statement":"Machine-generated transcription, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. No warranty of accuracy: see the provenance block on every page.","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/","holder":"Steps Ventures"}},"provenance":{"text_produced_by":"gemini-3.1-pro-preview","thinking_level":"low","read_completed":"2026-08-09","per_page_confidence":null,"per_page_confidence_note":"Not recorded during the corpus run. No calibrated per-page score exists, and none is estimated here.","human_reviewed":false,"accuracy_context":"Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting.","primary_source":"The page image. The text is an index into it."}}