explorers working separately without the co-operation of colleagues in
the same or kindred branches, and sometimes even without a knowledge of
the material that already exists, should be discouraged. The first step
to be taken is the compilation of travellers' handbooks, dialogues, and
vocabularies for the various districts of the so-called "neutral zone,"
so as to give to these travellers the key of information and to the
sympathy of the people, and our Government of India especially might
with advantage steadily collect both old and new information, not at
the time _when_, but long _before_, an emergency arises, so that it may
be dealt with by a wealth of knowledge when it does arise. Had this
view obtained when the "poor relatives of the European" were seen by
Sale, Macnaghten, Wood, and others, thousands of Kafir men and women
would not have been carried into slavery by the Afghans, hundreds of
Kafir villages would not have been destroyed, and the area of Kafir
traditions would not have been both corrupted and narrowed by the
broadening of the belt of "Nimchas," or converted Kafirs, which so
increases the difficulties of an exhaustive inquiry into at least the
_past_ of an interesting race. Above all should we have had a faithful
ally in our operations against Kabul, for even as it was, the tardy
knowledge of that war by the Kafirs sufficed to bring thousands into
the field ready to be let loose on their hereditary foe, whilst it put
a stop, at any rate temporarily, to the internecine feuds, which, as
much as Muslim encroachments, reduced the number of Kafirs. He hoped
that the visit of Mr. 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