The Amir Dost Mahomed Khan was one of the worst, and one of the best. One of the twenty-two sons of Sirafraz Khan, he worked his way upwards by truly Afghan methods; methods which in the early days of his career were utterly detestable, but which attained some sort of reflected dignity later, when there were not wanting signs that in a different environment he might have been truly great. He was illiterate and uneducated, but appreciated the advantages of elementary schooling in others. Into the strange welter of political intrigue which forms Afghan history during the period of his rise to power we need not enter; but it is necessary to note the extraordinary difference with which the stranger in the land, a Feringhi, was regarded throughout Afghanistan, then, as compared with his reception at present. It is even possible that the life of a Feringhi was then safer (i.e. deemed of more importance) than that of any ordinary Afghan chief. It is certain that there was a strong feeling that it was well to be on good terms with the representatives of a powerful neighbouring state. This feeling was greatly weakened by the results of the first Afghan war, and has never again been completely restored.
Although we are only dealing with Masson as an explorer, it is impossible not to express sympathy with his whole-hearted admiration for the country of the Afghan. His description of the beauties of the land, especially in early spring with the awakening of the season of flowers, the irresistible charm of the mountain scenery of the Kohistan as the gradual burst of summer bloom crept upwards over the hills—all this finds an echo in the heart of every one who has ever seen this "God granted" land; where, after all, the seething scum of Afghan politics is very much confined to a class, although it undoubtedly sinks deeper and reaches the mass of the people with more of the force of self-interest than is the case in India, where the historical pageant of kings and dynasties has passed over the great mass of India's self-absorbed people and left them profoundly unconscious of its progress.
In the year 1833 Masson resumed his researches in the neighbourhood of Kabul, commencing in the plains about 25 miles north-east from Kabul, and 8 or 10 from Charikar. These researches were continued for some years, until the failure of the mission to Kabul in 1838 obliged him to leave the country; and in his proposal to resume them again in 1840 he was opposed by "a miserable fraction of the Calcutta clique," who had recourse to "acts as unprecedented, base, and illegal as perhaps were ever perpetrated under the sanction of authority against a subject of the British Crown." So that apparently he claimed British nationality before he left Afghanistan. However that may be, it is certain that no subsequent explorer has added much that is of value to the extraordinary evidences of ancient occupation collected by Masson. Here, he maintains, once existed the city of Alexandria founded by Alexander on the Kabul plain; and a recent announcement from Kabul that the site of an ancient city has been discovered obviously refers to the same position at Begram near Charikar, and is a useful commentary on the rapidity with which the fame and name of an original explorer can disappear.
The Masson collection of coins, which totalled between 15,000 and 20,000 in 1837, and which was presented to the East India Company, proved a veritable revelation of unknown kings and dynasties, and contributed enormously to our positive knowledge of Central Asian history. The vast number of Cufic coins found at Begram show that the city must have existed for some centuries after the Mahomedan invasion. Chinese travellers tell of a city called Hupian in this neighbourhood, but Masson is inclined to place the site of Hupian near Charikar, where there was, in his time, a village called Malek Hupian. He thinks that Begram had certainly ceased to exist at the time of Timur's expedition to India; or that conqueror would not have found it necessary to construct a canal from the Ghorband stream in order to colonize this favoured corner of the Kabul plain. The canal still exists as the Mahighir, and the people of the neighbourhood talked Turki in Masson's time. Three miles east of Kabul there is another ancient site known as Begram. This was probably the precursor of Kabul itself, and other "Begrams" are known in India. The term appears to be generic and to denote a famous site. Buddhist relics lie thickly round about the Afghan Begrams, groups of them being very abundant throughout the Kabul valley.
It was after his first visit to Begram that Masson became acquainted with M. Honigberger, whom he describes as a gentleman from Lahore bent on archaeological research; and at the close of the autumn Dr. Gerard, the companion of Lieut. Burnes, appeared at Kabul. Honigberger's researches, like those of Gerard, appear to have been confined to archæology, and the results of them form an interesting story which was given to the world by Eugene Jacquet; but as neither of these gentlemen can be said to have contributed to the early geographical knowledge of the country, no further reference need be made to them, beyond remarking that Honigberger very narrowly escaped being murdered on his subsequent journey to Bokhara.
Masson's extraordinary capability of dealing with every class of people with whom he came in contact, and his consequent apparent immunity from the dangers which beset the ordinary unaccredited traveller, should not lead to the assumption that Afghanistan was a safe country to travel in at the time of our first political negotiations, in spite of there being less fanaticism at that time; whilst the trans-Oxus states were then almost unapproachable. There, at least, the gradual encroachment of Russian civilization has absolutely altered the conditions of European existence, and Bokhara has become quite a favourite resort for tourists.
Masson's story of Afghan intrigue, which is the substance of Afghan history at this period, is as interesting as are his archæological investigations, for it affords us a view of events which occurred behind the scenes, shut off from India by the curtain of the frontier hills; but whilst he thus occupied his busy mind with the past and the present policy of Afghanistan, he did not lose sight of the opportunity for making fresh excursions into Afghan territory. His visits to the Kabul valley and Peshawar can hardly claim to be original explorations, though he undoubtedly acquired by them a local geographical knowledge far in advance of anything then existing on the Indian side of the border, and some of it ranks as authoritative even now. It must not be supposed that these visits and investigations were carried on without grave risk and constant difficulty, but by this time Masson had so wide and so varied a personal acquaintance with the leading chiefs and tribespeople of the country that he usually succeeded in distinguishing friend from foe, and extricated himself from positions which would have been fatal to any one less knowledgeable than himself.
During the year 1835 we learn that Masson was in Northern Afghanistan, chiefly at Kabul, gathering information; but there appears to be hardly a place which now figures in our maps with any prominence in the Kabul province which he did not succeed in visiting; and as regards some of them (Kunar, for instance) there was nothing added to his record for at least sixty years. He penetrated the Alishang valley to within 12 miles of Najil, a point which no European has succeeded in reaching since; but his sphere of observation was always too restricted to enable him to make much of his geographical opportunities. Najil is now somewhat doubtfully placed on our maps from native information gathered during the surveys executed with the Afghan campaign of 1878-80.
It was at this period in Masson's career (in 1835) that English political interest in Kabul began to take an active shape. About this time Masson accepted a proposal from the Indian Government (which reached him through Captain Wade, the political officer on the Punjab frontier) to act as British agent and keep the Government informed as to the progress of affairs in Kabul. It is rather surprising that Masson, who never misses an opportunity of asserting that he was not an Englishman, and was by no means in sympathy with the policy of the Indian Government towards Afghanistan, should have accepted this responsibility. However, he did so, for a time at least, though he subsequently requested that he might be relieved from the duties entailed by such an equivocal position. He negotiated the foundation of a commercial treaty between India and Kabul, but with scant success. This period of seething intrigue at Kabul (as also between Dost Mahomed Khan and the Sikhs) was hardly favourable to its inception. His efforts were duly acknowledged by the Government, but his position as agent became untenable when he found that it led to interference with the great object of his residence in Afghanistan, i.e. antiquarian research. We can only touch upon the political events of 1836-37 cursorily, in spite of their absorbing interest, in order to follow the sequence of Masson's career.
At the beginning of 1836 the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh were consolidating their position on the Western Punjab frontier, whilst Dost Mahomed Khan was working all he knew to secure men and money for military purposes. This led to a half-hearted renewal of correspondence between Masson and Wade. The commencement of the year 1837 was marked by active preparations on the part of Dost Mahomed for a campaign against the Sikhs, resulting in an equivocal victory for the Afghans near Jamrud under Akbar Khan, but no essential change in the relative position as regards the Peshawar frontier. Various were the projects set on foot at this time for the assassination of the Amir, and in the general network of bloody intrigue Masson was not overlooked; but he was discreetly absent from Kabul during the winter of 1836-37, having previously found it necessary to keep his house full of armed men. He returned to Kabul in the spring.