It is a rapid and muddy stream, dangerous to cross when swollen by the melting of the snows in Armenia, but fordable in its ordinary state.
None of the rivers is navigable and all are fordable during the dry season.
But the French army was already completely out of hand, and the degree to which the panic of a crowd can master even the strongest instinct of the individual is shown by the conduct of the fugitives who crowded over the bridges, treading hundreds under foot, whilst all the time the river was easily fordable and mounted men rode backwards and forwards across it.
The upper reaches are nowhere fordable between Tadum and Lhasa, but there is a ferry at Likche (opposite Tadum on the southern bank), where wooden boats covered with hide effect the necessary connexion between the two banks and ensure the passage of the Nepal trade.
To the south, separated by a strait that is fordable at low water, lies the isle of Oronsay, 21 m.