Ever delighting in adventure, and prone to romance, he was at this time in a frame of mind which rendered him peculiarly greedy of excitement. A great sorrow was weighing heavily upon his heart. He sought relief in stirring occupation—in active adventure upon new scenes of enterprise; and when, for a time, it seemed that the unwillingness of the Supreme Government to sanction the mission was not to be overcome, he gave vent to the liveliest feelings of disappointment: “I was greatly disappointed,” he wrote to a dear friend on the 30th of May, “when Lord Auckland’s prohibitory letter arrived; for I had set my heart upon this nobly stirring employment; and when the chance of it seemed removed, I felt the blank that a man must feel who has a heavy grief as the first thing to fall back upon.” Conolly and Rawlinson were to have proceeded together to the camp of General Peroffski. But the Muscovite expedition to Khiva was brought by cold and want to a mournful end at Ak-boulak, and there was soon no Russian camp in Central Asia to which these enterprising officers could be despatched, if the permission of Government had been obtained. But Conolly, believing in his inmost heart that there was a much grander game to be played in those remote regions than one suggested by the mere accidental circumstance of the Russian advance, still clung to his conviction of the policy of the contemplated Mission, and earnestly enforced his opinions upon his political chief. Macnaghten listened—yielded—and indulging rather the wishes of his friend than conforming to the dictates of his own judgment, recommended the enterprise to the favourable consideration of the Supreme Government; and acting upon certain passages in a letter from the Chief Secretary, which might be construed into an implied permission, of a general rather than a specific character, ordered Conolly to proceed to Khiva and Kokund.