The Greeks in Bactria and India c27.17

c27.17

I am not saying here that Herrmann’s theory for the Greek period is either right or wrong; no one can say that.¹ The Greek evidence does not support it, and the Arab evidence is *prima facie* against it; but that is not the point. The point, as I see it, is that it is not a question for scholars at all but for science, and that the only people who can settle it are the Russian Government; and apparently it may soon be too late. For it has been a Russian dream for centuries to ‘turn the Oxus back into the Caspian’; and the Soviet Government are credited with a plan² to break up the Oxus and to take one branch across the Kara-Kum desert (for irrigation purposes) to a point east of Balkan Bay, and another branch, which will join it there, from a point in the Khiva country down the Uzboi, avoiding the saline expanse of Sary Kamish; the two together will then enter the Caspian at Balkan Bay, if there be any water left to enter it. We are not explicitly told how far the plan has gone—if the amount of water available has been calculated, if the Uzboi has been surveyed (it used to be said that there was difficulty about the levels), and what is to be done with the Aral when half-dry; but there are said to have been ‘scientific expeditions’ and the branch across the Kara-Kum is said to have been begun. It is greatly to be hoped that, before work be started on the Uzboi, scientific experts may investigate *all* the various lines of evidence and decide whether that channel formerly carried fresh water, salt water, or no water at all (unless this has already been done); for once a river be brought down it the evidence will be destroyed, and the ‘Oxus question’ will, for the Greek scholar, remain for ever the nightmare which it has always been.