The story of his adventures may be briefly told. Every one knows that the Government of India issued strict injunctions against allowing any European to cross the Afghan frontier. Nevertheless that restless spirit Sir Charles McGregor, Quartermaster-General, was naturally anxious to know something of the debateable land that lies north of the Kabul river and south of the Hindoo Koosh, and which tradition alleges to have been colonised by the soldiers of the Great Alexander himself. We have no doubt, that McGregor prompted the enterprise, though McNair never distinctly said that he had been urged by so high an officer to break the orders of his official superiors. The affair was arranged in this way. McNair took furlough, and ceased for the moment to be a servant of Government. He disappeared across the frontier and was not heard of again till his safe return was assured. Of course he had confederates; one in particular, a tribal chief whose friendship he had secured in the Afghan campaigns of 1878-79. His disguise was, however, pretty complete, walnut juice being, we believe, the material that converted a florid complexion into the tan so natural to Afghan mountaineers. He had the wisdom to confine his words to a language he understood as well as English, viz., Urdu, and posed as a _Hukeem_ from India impelled by a spirit of benevolence to visit unknown lands for the sake of caring the ailments of his fellew creatures. Had he attempted to talk Pushtoo, his foreign intonation would have been detected, while his knowledge of that tongue enabled him to detect the drift of any conversation that was carried on in his presence. Once, we believe, he was in imminent danger, a proposal having been set on foot to put an end to the wanderings of the _Hukeem_, as an English spy. A rapid change of quarters averted the danger, and he afterwards fell in with the people he came to see, viz., the Kafirs, who whether, descending from Alexander's Greeks or not, received him kindly. We believe the _Hukeem_ was aided in his researches by a big book supposed to contain medical receipts, but which was in reality a box of surveying instruments, its outside covered with cabalistic signs bearing a family resemblance to a plane-table! The _Hukeem_ was much given to solitary meditation, and generally sought mountain peaks for that purpose. On such occasions the plane-table afforded him invaluable assistance. But we have said almost enough of poor McNair's adventure. On his return he was ordered to Simla and officially reprimanded by the Viceroy, Lord Ripon, for disobedience of orders! He was consoled, however, by being told by the same nobleman at a private interview that his pluck was admired, while his fast friend, Sir Charles McGregor, received him with open arms. Such was the bright opening of a career that was so soon to be cut short at Mussooree by typhoid fever.