Kafirs whom Mr. McNair visited, were descended from Alexander's
soldiers; but there was not in reality the slightest foundation for
such a belief. Neither in language nor religion, nor manners and
customs, was there the least analogy between the Kafirs and Greeks. The
various dialects spoken by the tribes of the Hindu Kush, including the
Kafir tongues, were all of the Perso-Indian branch of the Aryan family,
and showed that the mountains must have been colonised during the
successive migrations of the Aryan tribes from Central Asia to the
southward. It might perhaps be possible some day to affiliate the
various tribes, when the vocabularies had all been collected and
compared by a good philological scholar, but at present there was much
uncertainty on the subject. Colonel Yule had expressed his pride and
satisfaction at Mr. McNair's success, and had congratulated the Society
on the great feat of exploring Kafiristan for the first time having
been accomplished by an English rather than by a Russian geographer. He
(Sir Henry) would furnish a further source of gratulation by remarking
on the fact that on the very day when Mr. McNair had related to the
meeting the incidents of his most remarkable journey, intelligence had
been received from the Indian frontier of another surprising
geographical feat having been achieved by a British officer who was
already well known to the Society, and who was, in fact, the chief of
the department to which Mr. McNair belonged. He alluded to the
successful ascent of the great mountain of Takht-i-Suliman, overlooking
the Indus Valley, by Major Holdich, of the Indian Survey Department.
This mountain, from its inaccessible position beyond our frontier, and
in the midst of lawless Afghan tribes, had long been the despair of
geographers, but Major Holdich with a small survey party had at length
succeeded in ascending it, and was said to have triangulated from its
summit over an area of 50,000 square miles. The Survey Department might
well be proud of holding in its ranks two such adventurous and