AMERICAN EXPLORATION—MASSON

In 1832 Lord William Bentinck, then Governor-General of India, found Shah Sujah, the deposed Amir of Kabul, living as a pensioner at Ludhiana when he visited the Punjab for an interview with its ruler Ranjit Singh. At that interview the question of aiding Shah Sujah to regain his throne from the usurper Dost Mahomed, who was suspected of Russian proclivities, was mooted; and it was then, probably, that the seeds of active interference in Afghan politics were sown, although the idea of aiding Shah Sujah was negatived for the time being. The result was the mission of Alexander Burnes to Kabul, which formed a new era in Central Asian geography. From this time forward the map of Afghanistan commenced to grow. The story of Burnes' first journey to Kabul was published by Murray in 1834, and his example as a geographical observer stimulated his assistants Leech, Lord, and Wood to further enterprise during a second journey to the same capital. Indeed the geographical work of some of these explorers still remains as our standard reference for a knowledge of the configuration of Northern Badakshan. This was the beginning of official recognition of the value of trans-Indian geographical knowledge to Indian administration; but then, as now, information obtained through recognized official agents was apt to be regarded as the only information worth having; and far too little effort was made to secure the results of travellers' work, who, in a private capacity and unhindered by official red tape, were able to acquire a direct personal knowledge of Afghan geography such as was absolutely impossible to political agents or their assistants.

Before Indian administrators had seriously turned their attention to the Afghan buffer-land and set to work to fill up "intelligence" material at second hand, there was at least one active European agent in the field who was in direct touch with the chief political actors in that strange land of everlasting unrest, and who has left behind him a record which is unsurpassed on the Indian frontier for the width of its scope of inquiry into matters political, social, economic, and scientific, and the general accuracy of his conclusions. This was the American, Masson. It must be remembered that the Punjab and Sind were almost as much terra incognita to us in 1830 as was Afghanistan. The approach to the latter country was through foreign territory. The Sikh chiefs of the Punjab and the Amirs of Sind were not then necessarily hostile to British interests. They watched, no doubt, the gradual extension of the red line of our maps towards the north-west and west, and were fully alive to the probability that, so far as regarded their own countries, they would all soon be "painted red." But there was no official discourtesy or intoleration shown towards European travellers, and in the Sikh-governed Punjab, at any rate, much of the military control of that most military nationality was in the hands of European leaders. Nor do we find much of the spirit of fanatical hatred to the Feringhi even in Afghanistan at that time. The European came and went, and it was only due to the disturbed state of the country and the local absence of law and order that he ran any risk of serious misadventure.

In these days it would be impossible for any European to travel as Masson or Ferrier travelled in Afghanistan, but in those days there was something to be gained by friendship with England, and the weakness of our support was hardly suspected until it was disclosed by the results of the first Afghan war. So Masson and Ferrier assumed the rÔle of Afghan travellers, clothed in Afghan garments, but more or less ignorant of the Afghan language, living with the people, partaking of their hospitality, studying their ways, joining their pursuits, discussing their politics, and placing themselves on terms of familiarity, if not of intimacy, with their many hosts in a way which has never been imitated since. No one now ever assumes the dress of the Afghan and lives with him. No one joins a caravan and sits over the nightly fire discussing bazaar prices or the character of a chief. A hurried rush to Kabul, a few brief and badly conducted interviews with the Amir, and the official representative of India's foreign policy returns to India as an Afghan oracle, but with no more knowledge of the real inwardness of Afghan political aspiration, or of the trend of national thought and feeling, than is acquired during a six months' trip of a travelling M.P. in India. Consequently there is a peculiar value in the records of such a traveller as Masson. They are in many ways as valuable now as they were eighty years ago, for the character of the Afghan has not changed with his history or his politics. To some extent they are even more valuable, for it is inevitable that the story of a long travel through an unknown and unimagined world should be received with a certain amount of reservation until later experience confirms the tale and verifies localities.

Fifty years elapsed before the footsteps of Masson could be traced with certainty. Not till the conclusion of the last Afghan war, and the final reshaping of the surveys of Baluchistan, could it be said exactly where he wandered during those strenuous years of unremitting travel. And now that we can take his story in detail, and follow him stage by stage through the Indian borderlands, we can only say that, considering the circumstances under which his observations were taken and recorded, it is marvellously accurate in geographical detail. Were his long past history of those stirring times as accurate as his geography or as his antiquarian information there would be little indeed left for subsequent investigators to add.

Masson was in the field before Burnes. In the month of September 1830 the Resident in the Persian Gulf writes to the Chief Secretary to the Government of India[10] that "an American gentleman of the name of Masson" arrived at Bushire from Bassadore on the "13th June last," and that he described himself as belonging to the state of Kentucky, having been absent for ten years from his country, "which he must consequently have left when he was young, as he is now only about two-and-thirty years of age." The same letter says that previous to the breaking out of the war between Russia and Persia in 1826 Masson "appears to have visited Khorasan from Tiflis by way of Mashed and Herat, making no effort to conceal his European origin," and that from Herat he went to Kandahar, Shikarpur, and Sind.

Masson appears to have furnished some valuable information to the Indian Government regarding the Durani occupation of Herat and the political situation in Kabul and Kandahar, which, according to his own account, he subsequently regretted, as he obviously regarded the British attitude towards Afghanistan at that time in much the same light as certain continental nations regarded the British attitude towards the Transvaal previous to the last Boer war. "About the same time," says the same letter from the Resident at Bushire, Masson was much in the Bahawalpur country (Sind), after which he proceeded to Peshawar, Kabul, Ghazni, etc. Extracts from his reports of his journeys are forwarded with other information. In his book (Travels in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, the Punjab, and Kalat, published in 1842) Masson opens his story with the autumn of 1826, when he was in Bahawalpur and Sind, which he had approached through Rajputana, and not from Afghanistan. He has much to say about Bahawalpur which, however interesting and valuable as first-hand information about a foreign state in 1826, no longer concerns this story. From Bahawalpur he passed on to Peshawar and Kabul, from Kabul to Kandahar, and thence to Shikarpur. As the incidents of his remarkable journey between Kandahar and Shikarpur, described in the letter of the Bushire Resident, are obviously the same as those in his book, the inference is strong that the journey from Tiflis to Herat and Kandahar (which is not mentioned in the book) has been somehow misplaced in the Resident's record.

When Masson entered Afghanistan from Peshawar there is certain indirect evidence that this was the first time that he crossed the Afghan border. He knew nothing of the Pashto language, which would be remarkable in the case of a man like Masson, who always lived with the people and not with the chiefs, and there is not the remotest reference to any previous visit to Herat in his subsequent history. We will at any rate follow the text of his own narrative, and surely no narrative of adventure that has ever appeared before or since in connection with Afghan exploration can rival it for interest. Peshawar was at that time held by four Pathan Sirdars, brothers, who were hardly independent, as they held their country (a small space extending to about 25 miles round Peshawar, and which included Kohat and Hangu) entirely at the pleasure of Ranjit Singh, the Sikh Chief of the Punjab. Some show of making a strike for independence had been made in connection with the Yusufzai rising led by Saiad Ahmad Shah, but it had been suppressed, and during the temporary occupation of Peshawar by the Sikhs the city had been despoiled and devastated. Masson estimated that there were about fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants in Peshawar, where he was exceedingly well treated. "People of all classes were most civil and desirous to oblige." He was an honoured guest at all entertainments.

How long Masson remained at Peshawar it is difficult to say, for there is a most lamentable absence of dates from his records, and Peshawar appears to have been the base from which he started on a good many excursions. Finally he made acquaintance with a Pathan who offered to accompany him to Kabul, and he left Peshawar for Afghanistan by the Khaibar route. He mentions two other routes as being popular in those days, i.e. those of Abkhana and Karapa, and he asserts that they were far more secure for traders than the Khaibar, but not so level nor so direct. Masson started with his companion, dressed as a Pathan, but taking nothing but a few pais (copper coins) and a book. His companion, however, possessed a knife tied up in a corner of his pyjamas. After cautiously crossing the plains and some intervening hills, they struck the high road of the Khaibar apparently not far from Ali Masjid, and here they fell in with the first people they had met en route—about twenty men sitting in the shade of a rock, "elderly, respectable, and venerable." They were hospitably received and entertained, and news of the arrival of a European quickly spread. Every European was expected to be a doctor in those days, and Masson had to assume the rÔle and make the most of his limited medical knowledge. He either prescribed local remedies, or healed the sick on Christian Science principles with a certain amount of success—enough to ensure him a welcome wherever he went. It is a curious story for any one who has traversed the Khaibar in these later days to read. A European with a most limited knowledge of Pushto tramping the road in company with a Pathan, living the simple life of the people, picking up information every yard of the way, keenly interested in his rough surroundings, taking count of the ragged groups of stone-built huts clinging to the hill-sides or massed around a central citadel in the open plain, with here and there a disintegrating monument crowning the hill-top with a cupola or dome, the like of which he had never seen before.

Masson had hardly realized in these early days that he was on one of the routes most sacred to pilgrimage of all those known to the disciples of Buddha, and it was not till later years that he set about a systematic exploration of the extraordinary wealth of Buddhist relics which lie about Jalalabad and the valleys adjoining the Khaibar route to Kabul. On his journey he made his way with the varied incidents of adventure common to the time—robbed at one place, treated with hospitality at another; sitting under the mulberry trees discussing politics with all the energy of the true Afghan (who is never deficient in the power of expressing his political sentiments), and, taking it altogether, enjoying a close, if not an absolutely friendly, intimacy with the half-savage people of those wholly savage hills. An intimacy, such as no other educated European has ever attained, and which tells a tale of a totally different attitude on the part of the Afghan towards the European then, to that which has existed since. The fact that Masson was American and not English counted for nothing. The difference was not recognized by the Afghans, although it was explained by him sometimes with careful elaboration. It was the time when Dost Mahomed ruled in Kabul, but with the claims of Shah Sujah (possibly backed by both Sikh and British) on the political horizon. It was a time of political intrigue amongst Afghan Sirdars and chiefs so complicated and so widespread as to be almost unintelligible at this distance of time, and not even Masson, with all his advantages of intimate association and great powers of intuition, seems to have fathomed the position satisfactorily. Consequently it was to the interests of the Afghan Government to stand well with the British, even if it were equally their aim to keep on good terms with Russia—in short, to play the same game that has lasted during the rest of the century, and which threatens to last for many another decade yet. But this was before the mission of Burnes, and before the events of the subsequent Afghan war had taught the Afghan that British arms were not necessarily invincible, nor British promises always trustworthy.

Apart from the ordinary chances of disaster on the roads arising from the lack of law and order, any European would have met with a hospitable reception at that time, and Masson himself relates how, in Kabul, during some of the friendly gatherings which he attended, the respective probabilities of British or Russian intervention in Kabul affairs was a common subject of discussion. It is easy for one who knows the country to picture him sitting under the shade of the mulberry trees, with the soft lush of the Afghan summer in grass and flowers about him, the scent of the willow in the air, and, across the sliding blue of the Kabul River, a dim haze shadowing the rounded outlines of some ancient stupa, whilst trying to unriddle the tangle of Afghan politics or taking notes of weird stories and ancient legends. Nothing seems to have come amiss to his inquiring mind. ArchÆology, numismatics, botany, geology, and history—it was all new to him, and an inexhaustible opportunity lay before him. He certainly made good use of it. He busied himself, amongst other things, with an inquiry into the origin of the Siahposh Kafirs, and, although his speculations regarding them have long been discounted by the results of subsequent investigation from nearer points of view, it is interesting to note how these savages were then regarded by the nearest Mahomedan communities. Masson admits that the history of a Greek origin is supported by all natural and historical indications, but he declines to accept "so bold and welcome an inference." Why he should call it "bold and welcome" and then reject it, is not explained, but it is probable that he accepted the claim to a Greek origin on the part of the Kafirs as indicating that they claimed to be Greek and nothing but Greek. When we consider the number and extent of the Greek colonies which once existed beyond the Hindu Kush it would indeed be surprising if there were no survival of Greek blood in the veins of the people who, in the last stronghold of a conquered and hunted race, represent the debris of the once powerful Baktrian kingdom. Incidentally he discussed the interesting episode of Timur's invasion of Kafiristan, a subject on which no recent investigations have thrown any further light. The story, as told by Timur's historian, Sharifudin, says that in A.D. 1399, when Timur was at Andarab, complaints were made to him of outrage and oppression by the exaction of tribute, or "Karaj," against the idolaters of Katawar and the Siahposh. It appears that Katawar was then the general name for the northern regions of Kafiristan, although no reference to that name had been recorded lately.

Timur is said to have taken a third part of the army of the Andarab against the infidels, and to have reached Perjan (probably Parwan), from whence he detached a part of his force to act to the north of that place, whilst he himself proceeded to Kawak, which is certainly Khawak at the head of the Panjshir valley. If Perjan is Parwan (which I think most probable) this distribution of his force would indicate that he held the Panjshir valley at both ends, and thus secured his flank whilst operating in Kafiristan. From Khawak he "made the ascent" of the mountains of "Ketnev" (i.e. he crossed the intervening snow-covered divide between the Panjshir and the head of the Alishang) and descended upon the fortress of Najil. This was abandoned by the Siahposh Kafirs, who held a high hill on the left bank of the river. After an obstinate fight the hill was carried, and the male infidels, "whose souls were blacker than their garments," were killed, and their women and children carried away. Timur set up a marble pillar with an inscription recording the event, and it would be exceedingly interesting if that pillar could be identified. Masson thinks that a structure which he ascertained to have been in existence in his time a little to the north of Najil, known as the Timur Hissar (Timur's Fort), may be the fort which Timur destroyed after it had been abandoned by the Kafirs, and that the record of his victory would be found near by. The chief of Najil in Masson's time claimed descent from Timur, and there was (and is still) so much of Tartar tradition enveloping the valley of Najil (or the upper Alishang) as to make it fairly certain that Tartar, or Mongol, troops did actually invade that valley from the Panjshir, and that there is consequently a practicable pass from the Panjshir into the upper Alishang.

If we are correct in our assumption of the position of Farajghan and Najil in the modern maps of Afghanistan, as determined from native sources of information (for no surveyor has ever laid down the course of the upper affluents of the Alishang) this Mongol force must have crossed from about the centre of the Panjshir valley. It is a matter of interest to observe that, historically, between Afghan Turkistan and the Kabul plain the fashionable pass over the Hindu Kush until quite recently was the Parwan, and this, no doubt, was due to the fact that its altitude (12,300 feet) is less by quite 2000 feet than that of the Kaoshan which closely adjoins it, although the Kaoshan is in some other important respects the easier pass of the two. The Khawak, at the head of the Panjshir, is lower still (11,650 feet), but it offers a more circuitous route; whilst the Chahardar, the pass selected by the Amir Abdurrahmon for the construction of a high-road into Afghan Turkistan from the Kabul plain, is as high as the Kaoshan. All these routes converge on the important strategical position of Charikar, adjoining the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshir rivers; and they all lead from that ancient strategical centre of Baktria, the Andarab basin. Undoubtedly through all time the passage over the Khawak (now a well-trodden khafila route, said to be open to traffic all the year round) must have been the most attractive to the freebooters and adventurers of the north; but there appears to have been a reputation for ferocity and strength attached to the inhabitants of the Panjshir valley, which was remarkable even in the days when the only recognized right was might, and half Asia was peopled by barbarians. They were spoken of with the respect due to a condition of savage independence by the Arab writers who detail the geography of these regions, and it is probable that they shared the historical lawlessness of their Kafir neighbours (the Siahposh), even if in those days they did not share a race affinity. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Emperor Babar notes that the Panjshir people paid tribute to their neighbours the Kafirs.

Masson's observations on this troublous corner of Asiatic geography are shrewd and interesting, and as much to the purpose to-day as they were when they were written. The explorations of McNair and Robertson over the Kafiristan border from Chitral, and the march of Lockhart's party through the Arnawai valley, added much to the geographical knowledge of the eastern fringe of Kafiristan, whilst the identification of the Koh-i-Mor with the classic Meros, and of certain sections of the eastern Kafirs as representative of the ancient NysÆans, clearly establishes the Greek connection about which Masson was so sceptical. But the Kafirs of Central and Western Kafiristan, the inhabitants of the upper basins of the Alishang and Alingar about the centre of the Hindu Kush and of the Badakshan rivers to the north, are just as unknown to us as they were to him. The only certain inference that we can draw from the total absence of history about these valleys of the Hindu Kush is that between the Khawak Pass at the head of the Panjshir valley on the west, and the Minjan Pass leading to Chitral on the east, there is not, and never has been, a practicable route connecting the Kabul basin with Badakshan. No Arab khafilas ever passed that way; no hordes of raiding robbers from Central Asian fields ever forced a passage southward through those Kafir defiles; they are still dark and impenetrable, the home of distinct and separate valley communities, differing as widely in form of speech as in superstitious ritual, the very flotsam and jetsam of High Asia, as wild as the eagles above them or the markhor on their craggy hill-sides.

We will not follow Masson into the mazes of Afghan political history. It is all a story of the past, but a story with a moral to it. Had the Government of India in those days but troubled itself to obtain information from existing practical sources within its reach, instead of improvising a most imperfect political intelligence system, the subsequent war with Afghanistan would have been conducted on very different lines to those which were adopted, if it ever took place at all.

Masson made his way steadily to Kabul after meeting with adventures and vicissitudes enough for a two-volume novel, and passed on to Ghazni, where the army of Dost Mahomed Khan was then encamped, and with which he took up his quarters. Here he was well received, and he interviewed the great Afghan Chief (who settled his quarrel with his brothers from Kandahar without fighting), and thus records his opinion of a remarkable personage in history: "Dost Mahomed Khan has distinguished himself on various occasions by acts of personal intrepidity ... has proved himself an able Commander, equally well skilled in stratagem and polity, and only employs the sword when other means fail. He is remarkably plain in attire.... I should not have conjectured him a man of ability either from his conversation or his appearance"; but "a stranger must be cautious in estimating the character of a Durani from his appearance," which caution he also found it necessary to exercise in the case of Dost Mahomed's corpulent brother, Mahomed Khan, the Governor of Ghazni. From Ghazni, Masson continued his journey to Kandahar, still trudging the weary road on foot in the doubtful company of casual Pathan wayfarers; and he accepts the savage treatment which he experienced at the hands of certain Lohanis near Ghazni as all in the day's work, never complaining of his want of luck so long as he got off with his life, and always ready to accept the chances of the most unsafe road rather than remain inactive. At Kandahar he again set himself to acquire a store of useful political information, though with what object it is difficult to say. He certainly did not mean it for the Indian Government, for he regrets later on in his career that he ever gave any of it away, and as a record of almost unintelligible Afghan intrigue it could hardly have interested his own. He was a wide observer, however, and must have been the possessor of a most remarkable memory. He was indeed a whole intelligence department in himself. After some weird and gruesome experiences in Kandahar (where, however, he was personally made welcome) he left for Shikarpur by the Quetta and Bolan route, and it was on this journey that he nearly lost his life. He committed the error of allowing the caravan with which he was to travel to precede him, trusting to his being able to catch it up en route. He fell amongst the Achakzai thieves of those ugly plains, and being everywhere known and recognised as a Feringhi, he passed a very rough time with them. They stripped him of his clothing after beating him and robbing him of his money, and left him "destitute, a stranger in the centre of Asia, unacquainted with the language—which would have been useful to me—and from my colour exposed on all occasions to notice, inquiry, ridicule, and insult." However, "it was some consolation to find the khafila was not far off," and eventually he joined it; but he nearly died of cold and exposure, and it took him years to recover from the rheumatism set up by crouching naked over the embers of the fire at night.

There are several points about this remarkable journey which might lead one to suspect that romance was not altogether a stranger to it, were it not that the route itself is described with surprising accuracy. It has only lately been possible to verify step by step the road described by Masson. He could hardly have carried about volumes of notes with him under such conditions as his story depicts, and it might very well have happened that he dislocated his topography or his ethnography from lapse of memory. But he does neither; and the most amazing feature of Masson's tales of travel is that in all essential features we knew little more about the country of the Afghans after the last war with Afghanistan than he could have told us before the first. Shall (or Quetta as we know it now) is described as a town of about 300 houses, surrounded by a slight crenelated wall. The "huge mound" (now the fort) is noted as supporting a ruinous citadel, the residence of the Governor. Fruit was plentiful then, and he adds that "Shall is proverbially celebrated for the excellence of its lambs." By the desolate plain of Dasht-i-bedoulat and the Bolan Pass, Masson trod the well-known route to Dadar and Shikarpur. He lived a strange life in those days. No one since his time has rubbed shoulders with Afghan and Baluch, intimately associating himself with all their simple and savage ways; reckoning every man he met on the road as a robber till he proved a friend; absolutely penniless, yet still meeting with rough hospitality and real kindness now and then, and ever absorbing with a most marvellous power of digestion all that was useful in the way of information, whether it concerned the red-hot sand-strewn plains, or the vermin-covered thieves and outcasts that disgraced them. It was quite as often with the lowest of the gang as with the leaders that he found himself most intimately associated.

In those days Sind was a country as unknown to us geographically as Afghanistan. The Indus and its capacity for navigation was a matter of supreme interest, but the deserts of Sind were eyed askance, and across those deserts came little call for exploration. The government of the country under the Sind Amirs was decrepit and loose, leaving district municipalities to look after themselves, and promoting no general scheme for the public good. Shikarpur had been a great centre of trade under the Duranis, and its financial credit extended far into Central Asia. But in Masson's time much of that credit had disappeared with the capitalists who supported it—chiefly Hindu bankers—who migrated to the cities of Multan and Amritsar as the Sikh power in the Punjab became a more and more powerful factor in frontier politics. Whether Masson is correct in his estimate of the mischief done by the reckless supply of funds from Shikarpur to the restless nobles of Afghanistan, who were thus enabled to set on foot raids and inroads into each other's territories, is, I think, doubtful. The want of money never stayed an Afghan raid—on the contrary it is more apt to instigate it. From Shikarpur he bent his steps towards the Punjab. No modern traveller, racing down the Indus valley by a north-western train, can well appreciate the amount of human interest and activity which lies hidden beyond the wide flat plains of tamarisk jungle that stretch between him and the frontier hills. This same Indus valley was Arabic India for centuries, and there were Greek settlements centuries earlier than the Arabs; none of this escaped Masson.

The vicissitudes of this weary walk were many. Masson was put to curious expedients in order to keep himself even decently clothed. From under one hospitable roof he stole out in the evening, when the ragged retinue of his host were all in a state of stupefaction from drink, in order to be spared their too familiar adieux. It is a remarkable fact that he found himself able to pass muster as a Mongol on his journey, there being a tradition in Sind that some Mongols were as fair as Englishmen. From Rohri on the Indus he made his way almost exactly along the line of the present railway, through Bhawalpur to Uch, continually losing his way in the narrow tracks that intersected the intricate jungle, with but a rupee or two in his pocket, and nothing but the saving grace of the village masjid as a refuge for the night. His experiences with wayfarers like himself, the lies that he heard (and I am afraid also told), the hospitality which he received both from men and women, and the variety of incident generally which adorns this part of Masson's tale is a refreshing contrast to the dreary monotony of the modern traveller's tale of Indian travel, the bare record of a dusty railway experience, with here and there a new impression of old and worn-out themes. He was impressed with the "contented, orderly, and hospitable" character of the people of Northern Sind, whose condition was "very respectable" notwithstanding an oppressive government. Saiads and fakirs, pirs and spiritual guides of all sorts were an abomination to him, but it is somewhat new to hear of Saiads that "they may commit any crime with impunity." At Fazilpur (in Bhawalpur) he found an old friend, one Rahmat Khan, and was once again in the lap of native luxury. Clean clothes, a bed to lie on, and good food, kept him idle for a month ere he started again northward for Lahore. Rahmat Khan was almost too generous. He spent his last rupee recklessly on a nautch, and had to borrow from the Hindus of his bazaar in order to find two rupees to present to his guest for the cost of his journey to Lahore. Of this large sum it is interesting to note that Masson had still eight annas left in his pocket on his arrival at that city. Alas for the good old days! What a modern tramp might achieve in India if he were allowed free play it is difficult to guess, but never again will any European travel 360 miles in India and feed himself for two months on a rupee and a half.

Masson notes the extraordinary extent of ancient ruins around Uch, and correctly infers the importance of that city in the days of Arab ascendency. He has much to say that is still interesting about Multan and its surroundings. It must have been new to historians to hear that the heat of Multan is due to the maledictions of the Saint Shams Tabieri, who was flayed alive by the progenitors of the people who now venerate his shrine. Multan was in the hands of the Sikhs when Masson was there. From Multan Masson ceased to follow the modern line of railway, and adopted a route north of the Ravi River until near the city, when he recrossed to the southern bank. Lost in admiration of the luxuriance of the cultivation of this part of the Punjab, and full of the interest aroused by the fact that he was on classical ground, the ground of ancient history, he wandered into Lahore. Lahore and the Sikh administration, the character of Ranjit Singh and his policy towards British and Afghan neighbours, are all part of Indian history, but it is interesting to recall the prominence of French and Italians in the Punjab 100 years ago. General Allard was encountered quite accidentally by Masson, who was at once recognized as a European, and found himself able to talk French fluently. This naturally led to his entertainment by the General at his own splendid establishments. The beautiful tomb of Jehangir, the Shahdera, was occupied as a residence by the French general, Amise, who died, so they said, in expiation of his impiety in cleaning it up and making it tidy—which was probably very necessary. The tomb of Anarkalli, south of the city, was used as a harem by M. Ventura, the Italian general, whilst the well-known Avitabile lived in a house decorated after the fashion of Neapolitan art in cantonments to the east of the city. The lovely gardens of Shalimar had already been robbed of much of their beauty by the transfer of marble and stone from their pavilions for the building of Amritsar, the new religious capital of the Sikhs. Lahore is "a dull city in the commercial sense," says Masson, and Amritsar "has become the great mart of the Punjab." We need not follow Masson's explorations in the Punjab and Sind, further than to relate that he finally left Lahore during the rainy season (he was riding now, and in fairly easy circumstances) and made his way south again via Multan, Haidarabad, and Tatta, to Karachi. There is a lamentable want of dates about this narrative, and it is almost impossible to fix the month, or even the year, in which Masson visited any particular part of the frontier.

His next exploits and explorations conducted from Karachi are sufficiently remarkable in themselves to place Masson quite at the head of the list of frontier explorers. He stands, indeed, in the same relation to the Indian borderland as Livingstone does to Africa. He first made a sea trip in Arab crafts up the Persian Gulf, visiting Muskat and obtaining a passage in a cruiser of the H.E.I. Company to Bushire. This we know from Major David Wilson's report to have been in 1830. It was then that he gave up the record of his previous travels, to which we have referred, and which he subsequently thought he had reason to regret. A month or two was passed at Tabriz, and a trip up the Tigris to Bagdad and Basrah. From Basrah he returned in a merchant vessel to Muskat, and finally made Karachi again in an Arab bagala. At Karachi he was not permitted to land, owing (as he suspected) to another party of Englishmen who were then attempting to explore the Indus. This turned out to be Captain Burnes' (afterwards Sir Alex. Burnes) party. The objection was based on a somewhat ridiculous notion of the capacity of the English to carry about regiments of soldiers concealed in boxes, and Masson subsequently learned that having no boxes with him, the opposition in his case had been withdrawn by the Amirs of Sind as tantamount to a breach of hospitality. However, for the time he was forced to return to Urmara on the Makran coast, from which place he hoped to reach Kalat. In this he was disappointed, but he found his way back to Sonmiani in an Arab dunghi (or bagala), which, with the monsoon wind at her back, was run in gallant style straight over the shallow bar into the harbour with hardly a foot of water below her. The practice of medicine was what sustained Masson at this period, but his reputation was slightly impaired by a crude prescription of sea water. A lady, too, who suffered from a disposition of her face to break out into white blotches, and who appealed for a remedy, was told that she would look much better all white. This again led to a lively controversy; but on the whole the practice of medicine was as useful to Masson as it has proved through all ages to explorers in all regions of the world.

The story of Masson's next journey through Las Bela and Eastern Baluchistan to Kalat and the neighbourhood of Quetta, must have been an almost unintelligible record for half a century after it was written. It is almost useless to repeat the names of the places he visited. Five-and-twenty years ago these names were absolutely unfamiliar, an empty sound signifying nothing to the dwellers on the British side of the Baluch frontier. Gradually they have emerged from the regions of the vague unknown into the ordered series of completed maps; and nothing testifies more surely to the general accuracy of Masson's narrative than the possibility which now exists of tracing his steps from point to point through these wild and desolate regions of rocky ridge and salt-edged jungle in Eastern Baluchistan. It is certainly significant that in the year 1830 more should have been known of the regions that lie between Karachi and Quetta or Kandahar, than was known fifty years later when plans were elaborated for bringing Quetta into railway communication with India.

Had Masson's information been properly digested, the most direct route to Kalat, Quetta, or Kandahar, via the Purali River, would surely have been weighed in administrative councils, and the advantage of direct communication with the seaport by a cheaply constructed line would have received due consideration. But Masson's work was still unproven and unchecked, and it would have been more than any Englishman's life was worth to have attempted in 1880 the task which he undertook with such light-hearted energy. His observations of the country he passed through, and the complicated tribal distribution which distinguishes it are necessarily superficial, but they are shrewd. It was clearly impossible for him to attempt any form of survey, and without some map evidence of the scene of his wanderings his explorations were deprived at the time of their chief significance. From Las Bela to Kalat he appears to have encountered no more dangerous adventure than might befall any Baluch traveller in the same regions. From Kalat he wandered at leisure northward till he overlooked the Dasht-i-bedaulat from the heights of Chahiltan. This well-known Quetta peak has probably often been ascended by Englishmen in late years, and the misty legend which is wreathed around it is familiar to every regimental mess in the Quetta garrison. It is perhaps a little disappointing to remember that the first white man who achieved its ascent and told the story of the forty heaven-sent infants who gambol about its summit to the eternal glory of the sainted Hazart Ghaos (the patron saint of Baluch children), was an American. Masson's interesting record of Chahiltan botany, however, would be more useful if he translated the native names into botanical language.

From Quetta he returned to Kalat, and, determined to see as much of the borderland as possible, he made his return journey from Kalat to Sonmiani via the Mulla Pass. The pass is still an interesting feature in Baluch geography. It was once the popular route from the plains to the highlands, when trade was more frequent between Kalat and Hindustan, and may serve a useful purpose again. Very few even of frontier officials know anything of it. Masson gives a capital description of the Mulla route, "easy and safe, and may be travelled at all seasons." From Jhal he went south through Sind to Sehwan, the antiquity of which place gives him room for much speculation; but from Sehwan to Sonmiani his route is not so clear. He started backwards on his tracks from Sehwan, then struck southward through lower Sind, passing on his way many ancient sites (locally known as "gÔt," i.e. kÔt, or fort), the origin of which he was apparently unable to determine, but halting at no place with a name that is still prominent, unless the modern Pokran represents his Pokar. I am not aware whether the "gÔts" described by Masson in lower Sind have as yet been scientifically examined, but his description of them tallies with that of similar ruins lately found near Las Bela (especially as regards the stone-built circle), which, occurring as they do in Makran and the valley of the Purali (the ancient Arabis), are possibly relics of the building races of Arabs (Saboean or Himyaritic) who occupied these districts in early ages before they became withered and waterless with the gradual alteration of their geographical conditions. Other constructions, such as the cylindrical heaps on the hills, are more certainly Buddhist. Masson was unaware that he was traversing a province which figured as Bodh in Arab chronicles, and is full of the traces of Buddhist occupation. Makran, Las Bela, and the Sind borderland still offer a mine of wealth for archÆological research. The last two or three days' march was in company with a Bulfut (Lumri) camel-man, whose mount was shared by Masson. As the Lumri sowar was in the habit not only of taking opium himself but of giving it to his camel, the morning's ride was sometimes perilously lively.

One would have thought that after so extensive an exploration, filled, as it was, with daily risk from the hostility of fanatics, or the more common (in those days) assaults of robbers, Masson would have had enough of adventure to last him some years. It was not so. He appears to have been an irreclaimable nomadic vagabond, and his only thought, now that he had reached the West, was to be off again to Afghanistan. Kalat again was his first objective, and to reach that place he followed very much the same route as before. From Kalat, however, to Kandahar and Kabul, he opened up a new line which is worth description. There is little to record as far as Kalat. Once again he joined a mixed Afghan khafila returning from India, and followed the route which leads through Las Bela, Wad, and Khozdar. It was spring, and the country was bright with flowers, the narrow little valleys being full of the brilliance of upspringing crops. It is a mistake to regard Baluchistan as a waste corner of Asia, the dumping ground of the rubbish left over from the world's creation. Much of it, doubtless, is inexpressibly dreary, and in certain dry and sun-baked plains scarred with leprous streaks of salt eruption, it is occasionally difficult to realize the beauty of the spring and summer time in valleys where water is still fairly abundant, and the green things of the earth seem mostly to congregate. A bed of scarlet tulips, or the yellow sheen of the flowering shrub which spreads across the plain of Wad would make any landscape gay, and the long jagged lines of purple hills with chequered shadows patching their rugged spurs would be a fascinating background to any picture. "Only man is vile,"—but this is not true either.

The character of the mixed inhabitants of these valleys of Eastern Baluchistan (we have no room for ethnological disquisitions) is as rugged as their hills, and as varied with patches of brightness as their plains. Masson knew them as no one knows them now, and he evidently loved them. His life was never safe from day to day, but that did not prevent much good comradeship, some genuine friendship, and a shrewd appreciation of the straight uprightness of those who, like the patriarchs and prophets of old, seemed to be the righteous few who leaven the whole lump. Masson was not a missionary, he was only a well-educated and most observant vagabond, but what he has to say of Baluch (or Brahui) character is just what Sandeman said half a century later, and what Barnes or MacMahon[11] would say to-day.

What Masson never seemed to appreciate (any more than the Arab traders who trod the same roads in mediÆval centuries) was the change of altitude that accrued after long travelling over apparently flat roads. The natural change in the character of vegetation with the increase of altitude appears, therefore, to surprise him. He reached Kalat without much incident. Here he parted with the Peshin Saiads and the Brahuis of the caravan, and proceeded with the Afghan contingent to Kandahar. The direct road from Kalat to Kandahar runs through the Mangachar valley and thence crosses the Khwaja Amran, or Kojak range, by the Kotal-i-bed into Shorawak, and runs northward to Kandahar through the eastern part of the Registan, without touching the main road from Quetta till within a march or two of Kandahar itself. It is worth noting that there was no want of water on this route, and no great difficulties were experienced in passing through the hills. Irrigation canals and the intricacies of natural ravines in Shorawak seem to have been the chief obstacles. It is a route which was never made use of during the last Afghan war, nor, so far as I can discover, during the previous one. The Achakzai tribespeople (some of whom were with the khafila returning to their country from Bombay) behaved with remarkable modesty and good faith, and altogether belied their natural characteristics of truculence and treachery. The journey was made on camel-back in a kajÁwa, a method of travelling which ensures a good overlook of the proceedings of the khafila and the country traversed by it, but which can have few other recommendations. Kandahar, however, was not Masson's objective on this trip. Afghanistan was in its usual state of distracted politics, and Kabul was the centre of distraction. To Kabul, therefore, Masson felt himself impelled; like the stormy petrel he preferred a troubled horizon and plenty of incident to the calmer seas of oriental existence in the flat plains of Kandahar. His journey with an Afghan khafila by the well-trodden road which leads to Ghazni was quite sufficiently full of incident, and the extraordinary rapacity of the Ghilzai tribes, who occupy the road as far as that city, leaves one astonished that enough was left of the khafila for useful business purposes in Kabul. Masson was impressed with the desolation and degradation of Ghazni. He can hardly believe that this waste wilderness of mounds around an insignificant town, with its two dreary sentinel minars standing out on the plain, and a dilapidated tomb where rests all that is left of the great conqueror Mahmud, can be the city of such former magnificence as is described in Afghan history. Every traveller to Ghazni has been touched with the same feeling of incredulity, but it only testifies to the remarkable power possessed by the destroying hordes of Chenghiz Khan and his successors of making a clean sweep of the cities which fell into their hands.

A few days before Masson's arrival in Kabul (this is one of the rare dates which we find recorded in his story) in June 1832, three Englishmen had visited the city. These were Lieutenant Burnes, Dr. Gerard, and the Rev. Joseph Wolff. He does not appear to have actually met them. Mr. Wolff had been fortunate enough to distinguish himself as a prophet, and had acquired considerable reputation. An earthquake preceding certain local disturbances between the Sunis and the Shiahs, which he foretold, had established his position, and imitators had begun to arise amongst the people. No better account of the city of Kabul, the beauty of its surroundings, its fruit and its trade, and the social customs of its people, is to be found than that of Masson. What he observed of the city and suburbs in 1832 might almost have been written of the Kabul of fifty years later; but the last twenty-five years have introduced many radical changes, and good roads for wheeled vehicles (not to mention motors) and a small local railway have done more even than the stucco palaces and fantastic halls of the late Amir Abdurrahmon to change the character of the place. The curious spirit of tolerance and liberality which still pervades Kabul and distinguishes it from other Afghan towns, which makes the life of an individual European far more secure there than it would be in Kandahar, the absence of Ghazidom and fanaticism, was even more marked then than it is now. Armenian Christians were treated with more than toleration, they intermarried with Mahomedans; the fact that Masson was known to be a Feringhi never interfered with the spirit of hospitality with which he was received and treated. Only on one occasion was he insulted in the streets, and that was when he wore a Persian cap instead of the usual lunghi. But the Jews were as much anathema as they are now, and Masson tells a curious tale of one Jew who was stoned to death by Mahomedans for denying the divinity of Jesus Christ, after the Christian community of Armenians had declined to carry out the punishment. To this day nothing arouses Afghan hatred like the cry of Yahudi (Jew), and it may very possibly be partly due to their firm conviction in their origin as Ben-i-Israel.

The summer of 1832 at Kabul must have been a delightful experience, but with the coming autumn the restlessness of the nomad again seized on Masson and he made that journey to Bamian in company with an Afghan friend, one Haji Khan, chief of Bamian, which followed the mission of Burnes to Kunduz, and proved the possibilities of the route to Afghan Turkestan by the southern passes of the Hindu Kush. Bamian was then separated from Kabul by the width of the Besud territory, which was practically controlled by a semi-independent Hazara chief, Yezdambaksh. Beyond Bamian the pass of Ak Robat defined the northern frontier of Afghanistan, beyond which again were more semi-independent chiefs, of whom by far the most powerful, south of the Oxus, was Mir Murad Beg of Kunduz. Amongst them all political intrigue was in a state of boiling effervescence. Haji Khan (a Kakar soldier of fortune) from Western Afghanistan knew himself to be unpopular with the Amir Dost Mahomed Khan, and had shrewd suspicions that spite of a long-tried friendship, he was regarded as a dangerous factor in Kabul politics. Yezdambaksh, influenced doubtless by his gallant wife, who rode and fought by his side and was ever at his elbow in council, trimmed his course to patch up a temporary alliance with Haji Khan under the pretext of suffocating the ambition of the local chief of Saighan; whilst Murad Beg about that time was strong enough to preserve his own position unassisted and aloof. Into the seething welter of intrigue arising from the conflicting interests of these many candidates for distinction in the Afghan border field Masson plunged when he accepted Haji Khan's invitation to join him at Bamian. Across the lovely plain of Chardeh, bright with the orange blossoms of the safflower, Masson followed the well-known route to Argandi and over the Safed Khak Pass to the foot of the divide which is crossed by the Unai (called Honai by Masson), meeting with the usual demands for "karij," or duty, from the Hazaras at their border, with the usual altercations and violence on both sides. Well known as is this route, it may be doubted whether any better description of it has ever been written than that of Masson. Instead of striking straight across the Helmund at Gardandiwal by the direct route to Bamian, the party followed the course of the Helmund, then fringed with rose bushes and willows, passing through a delightfully picturesque country till they fell in with the Afghan camp, after much wandering in unknown parts on the banks of the Helmund, at a point which it is difficult to identify.

The story of the daily progress of the oriental military camp, and the daily discussions with Haji Khan, who appeared to be as frank and childlike in his disclosures of his methods as any chattering booby, is excellent. There is no doubt that Masson at this time exercised very considerable influence over his Afghan and Hazara acquaintances, and he is probably justified in his claim to have prevented more than one serious row over the everlasting demands for karij. It is to be noted that two guns were dragged along with this expedition by forced Hazara labour, eighty men being required for one, and two hundred for the other, assisted by an elephant. The calibre of the guns is not mentioned. At a place called Shaitana they were still south of the Helmund, and in the course of their progress through Besud visited the sources of the Logar. Near these sources is the Azdha of Besud, the petrified dragon slain by Hazrat Ali (not to be confused with Azdha of Bamian), a volcanic formation stretching its white length through about 170 yards, exhaling sulphurous odours. The red rock found about its head is supposed to be tinged with blood. The Azdha afterwards seen and described at Bamian is of "more imposing size."

Another long march (apparently on the road to Ghazni) brought the expedition to the frontier of Besud, at a point reckoned by Masson as three marches from the Ghazni district. From here they retraced their steps and crossed the Helmund at Ghoweh Kol (? Pai Kol), making for Bamian. This closed the Besud expedition, which, regarded as a geographical exploration, is still authoritative, no complete survey of that district having ever been made. From the Helmund they reached Bamian by the Siah Reg Pass, thus proving the possibility of traversing that district by comparatively unknown routes which were "not on the whole difficult to cavalry, though impracticable to wheeled carriages." The guns were left in Besud, to be dragged through by Hazaras. It must be remembered that this was early winter, and the frozen snow rendered the passes slippery and difficult. The aspect of the Koh-i-Baba (? Babar) mountains, and their "craggy pinnacles" (which, by reason of their similarity of outline, gave much trouble to our surveyors in 1882-83) seems to have impressed Masson greatly. The descent into the Bamian valley was "perfectly easy, and the road excellent throughout." Masson's contributions to the Asiatic Society on the subject of Bamian and its "idols" are well known. His observations were acute, and on the whole accurate. He rightly conjectured these wonderful relics to be Buddhist, although he never grasped the full extent of Buddhist influence, nor the extraordinary width of their occupation in Northern Afghanistan. His conjectures and impressions need not be repeated, but his somewhat crude sketches of Bamian and the citadel of Gulgula intensify the regret which I always feel that a thoroughly competent photographer was not attached to the long subsequent Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission.

Masson's wanderings in the company of the Afghan chief Haji Khan and his redoubtable army through the valleys and over the passes of the Hindu Kush and its western spurs is full of interest to the military reader. The Afghan force consisted largely of cavalry, as did that of the gallant Hazara chief, Yezdambaksh. Nothing is said about infantry, but it was probably little better than a badly armed mob chiefly concerned in guarding the guns which reached the valley of Bamian, but, as already stated, they could not follow the cavalry over the Siah Reg Pass from Besud. They were sent round by the "Karza" Pass, which is probably the one known as Kafza on our maps, which indicates the most direct route from Kabul to Bamian.

It is necessary to follow the ostensible policy of these military movements in order to render Masson's account of them intelligible. Haji Khan was acting in concert with Yezdambaksh and his Hazara troops, with the presumed object of crushing first Mahomed Ali, the chief of Saighan (north of Bamian), and ultimately repeating the process on Rahmatulla Khan, the chief of Kamard (north of Saighan). In order to effect this he had to pass up the Bamian valley to its northern head, marked by the Ak Robat Pass (10,200 feet high), and thence descend into the Saighan valley by the route formed by one of its southern tributaries. It was early winter (or late autumn), but still the passes seemed to have been more or less free from snow, and the Ak Robat Pass in particular appears to have given little trouble, although the valley contracts almost to a gorge in the descent. Masson noted evidences of the former existence of a considerable town near this route on the descent from Ak Robat. Much to his astonishment, instead of smashing the Saighan opposition with his superior force, Haji Khan proceeded to patch up an alliance with Mahomed Ali, which was cemented by his marrying one of the daughters of that wily chief. Here, however, he experienced a cruel disappointment. Instead of the lovely bride whom he had been led to expect, he received a squat and snub-nosed Hazara girl, who was, indeed, of very doubtful parentage. This little swindle, however, was not permitted to interfere with his politics. The alliance ought to have aroused the suspicion of Yezdambaksh, but the latter seems to have trusted to the strength of his following to meet any possible contingency.

The next step was to proceed to Kamard and repeat the process of occupation. Here, however, an unexpected difficulty arose. The easy-going, hard-drinking Tajik chief of Kamard was far too wily to put himself into Haji Khan's power, and with some of the Uzbek chiefs who owed their allegiance to that fine old border bandit Murad Khan of Kunduz (of whom we shall hear again), positively declined to permit Haji Khan to come farther. Meanwhile, however, a force had advanced over the divide between Saighan and Kamard by a pass which Masson calls the Nalpach (or horseshoe-breaking pass), which can hardly be the same as the well-known Dandan Shikan (or tooth-breaking pass), but is probably to the east of it, leading more directly to Bajgah. Before ascending the pass, Masson noted the remains of an ancient town or fort built of immense stones, and here they halted. Here also snow fell. Next day a reconnaissance in force was made over the Nalpach Pass ("long, but not difficult"), and apparently part of the force descended into Kamard and commenced hostile operations against the Kamard chieftain. Haji Khan, however, returned to camp. He had now succeeded in breaking up the Hazara force which was with him into two or three detached bodies, so the opportunity was ripe for one of the blackest acts of treachery that ever disgraced Afghan history—which is saying a good deal. He entrapped and seized the fine old Hazara chief, Yezdambaksh, and, after dragging him about with him under circumstances of great indignity, he finally executed him. The Hazara troops seem to have scattered without striking a concerted blow; their camp was looted, whilst such wretched refugees as were caught were stripped and enslaved.

The savage barbarity of these proceedings, especially of the method of the execution of Yezdambaksh (a rope being looped round the wretched victim's neck, the two ends of which were hauled tight by a mixed company of relatives and enemies), disgusted Masson deeply, and there is a very obvious disposition evinced hereafter to part company with his treacherous host, although he makes some attempt to excuse these proceedings by pointing out that Haji Khan, after meeting with an unexpected rebuff from Kamard (which he dare not resent so long as the redoubtable Murad Beg loomed in the distance as the protector of the frontier chiefs of Badakshan), would have been unable to keep and feed his troops in the winter without scattering the Hazara contingent and possessing himself of the resources of Besud.

Winter had already set in, and the subsequent story is instructive in illustration of the difficulties which beset the road between Kabul and Bamian during the winter season. The resources of Bamian were insufficient even for his diminished force (now reduced to about its original strength of eight hundred), and the Ghulam Khana contingent grew restive and impatient, demanding to go back to Kabul. The passes, however, were not only closed by snow, but the position at Karzar was held by Hazaras, who, however much they were demoralised by the execution of their chief, might well be expected to make reprisals. The Ghulam Khana men, about two hundred and twenty strong, therefore moved in force from Bamian, with the hope of being able to influence the Hazaras to let them pass through Besud. Apparently they did not rank as true Afghans. No great resistance was made at Karzar, although they were not admitted to shelter. They were freely looted, and eventually allowed to pass after three days' detention, exposed to the terrific blasts of a winter shamal (north-west wind) in snow which was then breast high. Many of them perished before reaching Kabul, and many more were permanently disabled from frostbites.

Haji Khan, meanwhile, settled down as the uninvited guest of the people of Bamian, and ensconced himself and his wives in the fort of Saidabad, a strongly built construction of burnt bricks of immense size, which Masson believed to have been built by the Arabs. Saidabad is hard by the detached position of Gulgula; it is described by Masson in considerable detail. Here, at an altitude of about 8500 feet, a winter in Bamian is endurable, and Haji Khan avowed his intention of remaining. It is interesting to note that a khafila from Bokhara for Kabul arrived about this time, and was duly looted. Even in winter the route (as a commercial route) was open.

Masson's efforts were now directed towards getting back to Kabul. His first essay was in company of two brothers of Haji Khan, who vowed to get to Kabul somehow, even if, as Afghans, they had to fight their way through Besud. The party followed up the Topchi valley from Bamian, and crossing by the Shutar Gardan Pass, they reached Karzar. Here again Masson noted extensive ruins en route. The road was bad and the difficulties great, "leading over precipices," but they did, nevertheless, succeed in crossing the main divide. Here Masson experienced a very bad time, and to his disgust found that he must retrace his steps to Bamian, owing to counter orders from Haji Khan recalling the escort. There appeared, however, a prospect of getting out of Bamian by the Shibar Pass (an easy pass), leading to the head of the Ghorband valley; and trusting to certain arrangements made by a Paghmani chief, Masson made a fresh attempt, passing eastward the ancient remains of Zohak, and ascending by a fairly easy open track to the valley or plain of Irak. Probably this pass is the one known as Khashka in our maps. The wind was terrific, but the comparative freedom from snow was an unexpected advantage.

Passing eastwards from Irak (still on the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush) the party made comparatively easy progress by a valley which Masson calls Bubulak (where he observed tobacco to be growing). They gradually ascended until once again they found themselves in snow, but instead of making direct for the Shibar they inclined to a more northerly pass called Bitchilik, which is separated from the Shibar by a slight kotal (or divide). Here they found the Paghmani chief whom they expected to join, but they found also that the section of Hazaras who held these passes then were determined to bar their passage. Once again Masson had to abandon the attempt (albeit the Shibar route to Kabul would have been a very devious and dangerous one), and returned to Bamian.

There are one or two circumstances about this exploration of the western Hindu Kush passes which deserve attention. For once Masson is slightly inaccurate in his geography when he states that the Irak stream drains into the Bamian valley. It joins the Bamian River after it has left the valley and turned northward. So slight an error is only a useful proof of his general accuracy. Another remarkable fact was that he, a Feringhi, was elected by the Afghan gang with which he was temporarily associated as their Khan, or chief! He was a little better dressed than most of them in European chintzes. He found himself utterly unable to restrain their looting propensities, but he made himself quite popular by his civility and his small presents to the wretched Hazaras on whom they were quartered. Incidentally he gives us a most valuable impression of the nature of an important group of Afghan passes, and I doubt if his information has ever been much improved upon.

Finally, the surrender of the Karzar position by the Hazaras reopened the road to Kabul, and Masson was enabled to reach that capital by the Topchi, Shutar Gardan, Kalu, Hajigak routes to Gardandiwal on the Helmund. The Hajigak route he describes as easy of ascent, but "steep and very troublesome" in the south. The Shutar Gardan (called Panjpilan now) was "intricate and dangerous," but the passing of it was done at night. This is, and always has been, the main khafila route between Kabul, Bamian, and Bokhara. The journey from the Helmund across the Unai (which pass was itself "difficult") was not accomplished without great distress. A winter shumal caught Masson on the road, and but for the timely shelter at Zaimuni would have terminated his career there and then. Masson describes the terrific effect of the wind with great vigour, but those who have experienced it will not accuse him of exaggeration.