Travels Into Bokhara: Volume II

At midday, on the 16th of August, we commenced our march on the Oxus, which was about twenty-seven miles distant. After journeying for ten miles, we halted in the evening at a small village, and set out at midnight for the river, under a bright moon. For a great part of the night our route led us among vast fields of soft sand, formed into ridges which exactly resembled, in colour and appearance, those on the verge of the ocean. The belt of these sand-hills, which lie between Bokhara and the Oxus, varies in breadth from twelve to fifteen miles. They were utterly destitute of vegetation. There was a remarkable uniformity in their formation; the whole of them preserved the shape and form of a horse-shoe, the outer rim presenting itself to the north, the direction from which the winds of this country blow.