Before Thesiger, T.E.Lawrence and Richard Burton, there was an even greater traveller in the heroic British tradition of the recklessly adventurous, amateur scholar Alexander Burnes. This slightly built, wiry young Scotsman, had a rapier-like mind, sharp, quick and decisive. Sent to India aged just sixteen to make his fortune, he soon revealed an extraordinary talent for languages, combined with a boyish charm, insatiable curiosity and irrepressible enthusiasm. By the age of 26 he had so impressed his superiors that he was entrusted with the task of journeying up the Indus, ostensibly with a gift of horses from King George to the Maharajah of Lahore. In reality he was acting as a diplomat and spy, assessing both the territory and the calibre of the warrior-kingdoms on the western frontier of the British Raj. Having succeeded, he was then despatched on a much more dangerous mission, to explore the political and ethnic realities amongst the Khanates of Afghanistan and Central Asia. The subsequent account of these travels was a best-seller in its day. This brand new edition brings the heady sense of excitement, risk and zeal of Alexander Burnes's missions bursting out from the pages.
