Wood's return to Kunduz was but the prelude to another journey of exploration into the northern regions of Badakshan which, in some respects, was the most important of all his investigations, for it is to the information obtained on this journey that we are still indebted for what little knowledge we possess of the general characteristics of the Oxus valley above Termez. Dr. Lord was summoned in his medical capacity to visit a chief at Hazrat Imam on the Oxus River, and Wood seized the opportunity to explore the Oxus basin from Hazrat Imam upwards through Darwaz.
Kunduz itself has been described by both authorities as a miserable swamp-bound town, with pestilential low-lying flats stretching beyond it towards the Oxus. This low country is, however, productive, and is probably by this time largely reclaimed from the grass and reed beds which covered it. Into this poisonous swamp country the Uzbek chief had imported the wretched Badakshani Tajiks whom he had captured during his extensive raids, for the purpose of colonizing. Wood reckons that 100,000 people must have originally been dumped into this swamp land, of whom barely 6000 were left when he was at Kunduz. Between the swamp and the Oxus was a splendid stretch of prairie or pasture land, reaching to the tangled jungle which immediately fringed the river below the Darwaz mountains, and this naturally excited his admiration. "Eastward" of Khulm "to the rocky barriers of Darwaz all the high-lying portion of the valley is at this season (March) a wild prairie of sweets, a verdant carpet enamelled with flowers"; and he describes the "low swelling" hills fringing these plains as "soft to the eye as the verdant sod which carpets them is to the foot." This is very pretty, and quite accords with the general description of country which forms part of the Oxus valley much farther west. The Oxus jungles, however, only occur at intervals. In Wood's time (1838) they were a thick tangle of low-growing scrub, which formed the haunts of wild beasts which were a terror to the dwellers in the plains. Tigers are found in those patches of Oxus jungle still. Hazrat Imam then ranked with Zebak and Jirm as one of the most important towns of Badakshan. East of Hazrat Imam were the traces of a gigantic canal system with its head about Sherwan, from which point to the foot-hills of Darwaz the river is (or was) fordable in almost any part. Wood forded it at a point near Yang Kila, opposite Saib in Kolab, in March, and found the river running in three channels, only one of which was really difficult. In this one, however, the current was running 4 miles an hour and the width of the channel was about 200 yards. It was only by uniting the forces of the party to oppose the stream that they were able to effect the passage. Thus was Wood probably the first European to set his foot in Kolab north of the Oxus. The river-bottom in this part of its course is generally pebbly, and at the Sherwan ford guns had been taken across. Near the mouth of the Kokcha (here a sluggish muddy stream) Wood found the site of an ancient city which he calls Barbarra, and which I think is probably the Mabara of Idrisi.