undeveloped system. He was one of the first to prove the full value of
the plane-table in such work as this, for it must be remembered that he
was working in a country peculiarly favourable to the application of a
system of graphic triangulation, and very different to the densely
forest-clad mountains of the eastern frontier into which the
plane-table had been carried before, with advancing brigades. At the
close of the war, which brought no recognition of his exceptional
services, he was appointed to the Kohát survey party, which was
primarily raised for the mapping of the Kohát district, but which
afforded occasional opportunities for extending topography across the
border. When this party was first raised our frontier maps were of the
most elementary character; there was many a wide blank in the
topography of the lower borderland, and geographical darkness shrouded
nearly the whole line of frontier mountains. 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. It was whilst he was thus occupied between Peshawur
and Dera Ismail Khan that he made the acquaintance of certain
influential men of the Kaken Khel, who offered to see him safely
through the dangerous districts outlying Kaffirstan, and give him the
opportunity of being the first European to set his foot in that land of
romance. 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