The Oxus is the typical representative of the country it traverses,--wild and unruly in its course, like the temperament of the Central Asiatics. Its shallows are as little marked as the good and bad qualities in the Turkoman; daily it makes for itself new channels similar to the nomad, whose restless spirit, wearied of staying long in one spot, is ever craving for novelty and change. Early the second day we passed the town of Görlen at a short distance from the shore. The proper landing place is a village near, called Ishimdji, and opposite to it on the right bank is situated the fort Rehimberdi Beg, which I mention merely because here begins the mountain chain of Oveis Karayne, extending from south-east to north.[12] At first sight it bears much resemblance, as well in height as in its formation, to the Great Balkan in the desert, between Khiva and Astrabad; but on a nearer approach its larger circumference soon becomes apparent, and the luxuriant vegetation and the woods with which several of its heights are clothed, present a scene of agreeable surprise. On one of them is said to be the tomb of Oveis Karayne, a celebrated place of pilgrimage in Khiva, and in the distance we discovered several buildings, which Rehimberdi Beg had erected for the convenience of the devotees. Further on is the Munadjat daghi (mount of devotion), which is pointed out as the resting place of a holy lady, called Amberene (Mother Ambra). Holy women are not often met with in Sunnitic Islamism; there are, however, a few of them in Central Asia, which may be taken as a fresh proof that Islamism does not treat the fair sex with such unnatural harshness as people in Europe are apt to imagine. As to my lady Amberene, tradition tells us that, a Zuleikha in beauty, a Fatima in virtue, she was hated and afterwards expelled by her husband, solely because she professed the Mohammedan religion, of which he was an arch-enemy. Driven from her princely abode in Urgendj, she was obliged to take refuge in this wild spot, and would have died of starvation but for a hind which appeared daily at the entrance of her cave, waiting to be milked, and then again disappeared. Who, in hearing this tale, is not reminded of the story of Genoveva? The Parisians in those days were not better than the Œzbegs of to-day; nor can we fail to be struck with the identity that exists in fables of social and religious life, among nations living widely separated from each other. [12] Oveis Karayne is the name of a faithful follower of Mohammed, who out of love to the Prophet had all his teeth knocked out, the latter having lost two of his front teeth in the battle at Ohud, through a blow from the enemy's weapon. After Mohammed's death he even intended to found an Order, with this self-mutilation as a condition of membership; but his efforts proved unsuccessful. The assertion, that he came to Khiva and died there, belongs rather to the region of fiction.