J. E. Howard

“ It is a good token for the future that men shall feel their labour is appreciated, although a desire for official recognition may be no incentive to the devotion itself. It is certain that William McNair always valued the appreciation of his official superiors, and that nothing could have given him greater pleasure or more comfort, in his review of his own brief labours, than to have known he would be thus remembered by the head of his own department. ”

“ In order to appreciate properly the spirit of enterprise which animated the man, critics of his actions should put themselves in his place. He was well aware that the information which he could obtain would be of the highest value; further, he knew that probably there was not another man in India who could obtain it as successfully as himself, and he judged that some slight exception might be made in his favour if he took on himself the responsibility of accepting a most favourable opportunity of doing most valuable work at the expense of infringing certain rules about crossing the border. ”

“ It may be some consolation to the widowed mother now robbed of her darling boy, to know that there are heavy hearts in other homes besides her own—the purest tribute that can be laid on the grave of one who was a good son as well as a gallant explorer. ”

“ Every one knows that the Government of India issued strict injunctions against allowing any European to cross the Afghan frontier. Nevertheless that restless spirit Sir Charles McGregor, Quartermaster-General, was naturally anxious to know something of the debateable land that lies north of the Kabul river and south of the Hindoo Koosh, and which tradition alleges to have been colonised by the soldiers of the Great Alexander himself. ”

“ In youth he was very ardent and affectionate, but as he advanced in years the hardships of his life and the long periods of solitude he passed through seemed to mellow the natural demonstrativeness of his nature, and he appeared to me to have suffered that chastening which all men derive as their blessed portion from communion with Nature in her loving and silent moods; the very ruggedness of mountain solitudes speaking to the heart of man with a solemnity no tongue can reach. ”

“ The hostility of the border people had always been such that it was a matter of considerable risk to approach them, but the temper of the tribes was then rapidly changing with the times, and McNair rapidly succeeded in establishing himself on a friendly footing with frontier robber chiefs, whose assistance was invaluable in arranging short excursions across the line, by means of which he was able to complete a fairly accurate map of most of the border country. No work that ever he accomplished has been of more value to the Government of India than this unobtrusive frontier mapping. ”

“ To the others who have loved the dying, and have gone before him, it is not a darkening, but a dawning. Perhaps to them it is the brightest dawn when it has been the most opaque and colourless sunset on the side of the earth. ”

“ Sir Henry Rawlingson was glad of the opportunity of expressing his high appreciation of the value of Mr. McNair's exploration. His journey was not a mere holiday trip, or an every-day reconnaissance survey; on the contrary, it was a serious undertaking, and opened up what he (Sir Henry) , for twenty years had maintained to be the great natural highroad from India to Central Asia. The route to the north of the Kabul river and along the Chitral Valley was by far the most direct and the easiest line of communication between, the Punjab and the upper valley of the Oxus ”

“ On that spot, as it lies, the visitor will behold on one side, to the south, the dark shadow of a mountain elevation, called the "Camel's Back," by reason of its shape and sheer projection upwards, typifying the wall of human sense at sight of death; and on the other he will look out upon the ever-changing, though distant line of perpetual snow. The snow view in India, on mountain regions, is beyond description. ”

“ The Kafirs are described as strong athletic men with a language of their own, the features and complexions of Europeans, and fond of dancing, hunting, and drinking. They also play at leap-frog, shake hands as Englishmen, and cannot sit cross-legged on the ground. When a deputation of Kafirs came to Sir William Macnaghten at Jalalabad, the Afghans exclaimed: 'Here are your relations coming!' From the days of Alexander the Great the Siah-posh Kafirs have never been conquered, and they have never embraced Islam. ”

“ The snow-capped summits of some of the more southerly peaks of Kaffirstan had been seen and fixed by McNair during the progress of the Afghan campaign, and it had ever been a dream with him to reach those mighty spurs, and torn those peaks to account by using them as the basis of a topographical map of the country. He did reach them, as the records of the R.G.S. sufficiently show, and he may fairly claim to be the first Englishman to lift even a corner of the veil of mystery which has ever shrouded that inaccessible country so far as its topographical conformation is concerned. ”

“ The roseate tints of dawn blush on their peaks till they become a flame, and pale into iciest marble; and the evening splendours of purple and violet and death-like blue are the phantasmagoria which no human hand has ever made a living picture. Like the human life, it grows into beauty, coruscates, and then passes into darkness. ”

“ Leitner's profound German dialectic in the discussion on the paper read by McNair over the preliminary preparation in language and terms required by an explorer to do his work effectively. Where man is equipped by that instinctive faculty of accommodating himself to the men of all nations with their physical attributes and surroundings, I think he may dispense, in a large measure, with the science of language as an open sesame. Nature has her own methods. ”

“ McNair and of the native Christian missionaries recently in Kafiristan, might be another step towards the future union and civilisation of a race that, whether in part descended from the colonies planted by Alexander the Great or not, should no longer be treated as "poor relatives" by their European brethren, for whom the interposition of friendly and vigorous tribes of mountaineers, along with the Dards with whom they have so much in common, between the British and Russian possessions in Asia, cannot fail to be an advantage in the interests of peace. ”

“ By his death, India loses a valuable public servant, and that loss, we venture to say, will be more deeply felt should complications arise on the frontier, when the knowledge, experience, and ability of men like Mr. McNair will be the primary condition of success in any operations in that quarter. We do not know whether we should regret of any man that he did hot receive the full meed of the success achieved by him in his life career amongst his fellows. ”

“ William McNair, the Kafiristan explorer. A man singularly frank and genial, he was 33 years of age when he undertook the venture that won for him the medal and fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society which were conferred in 1884. In that year he had the satisfaction of lecturing before British audiences on the results of his travels, and as it was the first time he had visited the land of his fathers the pleasure of seeing the old country under circumstances so honourable to himself was doubly keen. ”

“ Out of it he never rose, though had he lived on the Russian side of the border his career might well have brought him high military rank and decorations in strings across his uniform. They say that decorations are "cheap" there. Yet it should be remembered that zeal, industry, enterprise, and patriotism are "cheap," too, if they are to be won by them. Perhaps we manage better. The good old copybook maxim, "Virtue is its own reward," must be McNair's epitaph, whilst we cannot help feeling that India could have better spared many a "bigger" man. ”

“ His last hours were ministered to faithfully by a chaplain of the English Church in Mussooree. The religious life of the family resigned itself speedily to that sovereign will of heaven which means to all who have tasted of its majesty and glory, and have seen glimpses of the wisdom and foresight that put man's desires to shame, the submission of heart and mind in all their integrity. ”

“ Eighteen or twenty centuries ago it was one of the most sacred spots of Buddhism, filled with Buddhist monasteries and temples, but, as far as he knew, no European except Mr. McNair had ever seen those remains. If further explorations were carried out there probably most interesting discoveries would result. Passing on to the Panjkhora river and to Dir, there was very little doubt that those valleys were the scene of some of Alexander's exploits on his way to India. ”

“ McNair, of the Survey Department, a most valuable officer has been lost to the Government of India, and a contributor to our geographical knowledge of Afghanistan. It is difficult to estimate the value of his services, as they have never been brought prominently into notice like those of others who have lived in the sunshine of official favour. ”

“ I state the simple truth when I record that the testimonies, received in this way from the two extremes of highest knowledge and most diverse social and national conditions, remain the most grateful and enduring memorials of a life's work to those who must ever cherish the memory of what this memoir is precluded from touching on, namely, the more sacred domestic endearments of the life-long devotion to family ties of a son and a brother. ”

“ To natures that regard the daily associations of an arduous career as giving a sanctification all their own, the testimony of colleagues—and, most of all, of the responsible mouthpiece of those colleagues—is specially and naturally dear. ”

“ I cannot say my stay was a pleasant one, for from early morn till dusk our hut was surrounded by patients, and inasmuch as the chief had recovered, it was considered a sufficient guarantee that, no matter what the ailment or disease might be, if only the tabib would prescribe, all would come right. Men with withered arms and legs, others totally blind, were expected to be cured, and no amount of persuasion would convince those who had brought such unfortunates that the case was a hopeless one. ”

“ The process in dealing with a race whose language one does not know at all is more difficult, but, even in initial stages, the procedure of pointing to objects that are required will not only generally give their native equivalents, but will also elicit the orders or imperatives for these objects being brought, whilst the use of these imperatives by the traveller will often elicit the indicative or future in the assent or dissent of those to whom the imperatives are addressed, or else an ejaculatory affirmative or negative. ”

“ The gestures too of a race are of importance in eliciting correct information, for it is obvious that where, on rugged mountain sides, ascent or descent can only be practised by the aid of the hands as well as of the feet, the terms for "up" and "down" may be significant of surrounding topography, just as, to reverse the argument, where many meet only to fight, the putting of the fingers of both hands together will mean "collision," instead of its being the more usual sign for "multitude," or the limit of computation which a savage race may have reached. ”

“ They are, as is always the case with hill tribes, short of stature, daring to a fault, but lazy, leaving all the agricultural work to their womenkind, and spending their days, when not at war, principally in hunting. They are passionately fond of dancing, in which both sexes join, scarcely letting an evening pass without indulging in it around a blasing fire. ”

“ It must fairly be conceded that the conditions under which such a spirit of enterprise was shown made that spirit especially honourable—for the Government of India has never been in a position to encourage any such ventures. On the contrary, the possible gain in information has always been held to be more than counterbalanced by the chance of "complications." ”

“ He (Colonel Yule) rejoiced that had lived to see Kafiristan partially revealed by an Englishman and not by a Russian.
Dr. Leitner said it was well that travellers, however naturally accurate in their observations, should submit their results to the criticism of learned societies, for, after all it was in such centres that information from various quarters could be best collected, sifted, and compared. The task of a pioneer is proverbially ungrateful, but he is sufficiently rewarded if he collects facts for the examination of scholars, and if some of these facts stand that test. ”

“ There, let us trust, all lives which seem to us to have snapped asunder here, in imperfect fruition of bright promise, may find their perfect fulfilment of desire. As Faber poetically says:—"Death, after all, is a darkening and disappearance of those we love, and we must be content to take it so. ”

“ It is not always from official neglect, or human pride and indifference, that this want of sympathy for human labour and human devotion arises, but rather from the infinite preoccupations and monotonous overwork of the faculties of all public servants of any position of importance in that vast continent of swarming bees intent on their day's labour and nothing else. ”

“ The only village between the pass and the Kunar river is Ashreth. The people of this village pay tribute to Dir as well as Chitral, and this tribute is rendered in the form of escort to travellers ascending the pass. But the people themselves are Shias and recently converted Kafirs, and are known to be in league with the Kafir banditti, giving notice to the latter of the approach of travellers rather than rendering effective aid against them. Fortunately the ascent was easy and gradual. The descent is steeper, and in parts very trying. ”