amongst our officers, was yet never quite able to see his way to making
such enterprise possible to a man who valued his commission. Lord
Ripon, under whose rule indeed more geographical work was completed
than under any previous Viceroy, was apt to regard the line of frontier
peaks and passes much as a careful gardener regards a row of
beehives--as subjects of tender treatment and watchful care: whilst
Lord Dufferin has lately with one wide sweep removed the great
incentment to all exploration enterprise by making the results thereof
"strictly confidential." These are cloudy conditions under which to
grow a true spirit of enterprise, and where it here and there crops up
and flourishes in spite of circumstances it is surely all the more to
be commended.

The story of McNair's journey to Kaffiristan need not be told here. It
was not made strictly confidential in those days, and it will be found
in the chronicles of the Royal Geographical Society. For this
performance he obtained the Murchison grant of the Society, and on the
strength of it he may be said to have taken his place amongst the first
geographers of the day. His frontier work did not end here. For the
last two years he was engaged on the most trying work of carrying a
"first class" triangulation series from the Indus at Dera Ghazi Khan,
across the intervening mountain masses, to Quetta, thence to be
extended to the Khojak, a work which involved continuous strain of
mountain climbing, of residence with insufficient cover in intensely
cold and high elevated spots, and the unending worry of keeping up the
necessary supplies both of food and water for his party. No doubt it
tried his constitution severely, and a hot weather at Quetta is,
unfortunately, not calculated to restore an impaired constitution.
Although very ill he determined to leave Quetta when his leave became
due, and he made his way with difficulty to Mussoorie to die amongst