It is quite comprehensible that the Indian Government should not duly appreciate the position of an adventurer like Masson and his intimate acquaintance with Afghanistan and its riotous rulers; but it was unfortunate; for it is not too much to say that Indian Government officials at that time were but amateurs in their knowledge of Afghan politics compared to Masson; and much of the horrors of subsequent events might have been avoided could Masson have been admitted freely and fully to their counsels. However, for a time he employed himself in collecting historical and scientific notes on Afghanistan, which we still regard as standard works for reference. No one has succeeded better in giving us an impression of the leading characteristics of the Afghan chiefs of his time, and probably there is not much improvement effected by a century of moral development. Steeped up to the eyes in treachery towards each other, debauchees, drunkards, liars, and murderers, one cannot but admire their extraordinary virility. It was truly a case of the survival of the fittest, and the fittest were certainly remarkable men. The Amir Dost Mahomed Khan was one of the worst, and one of the best. One of the twenty-two sons of Sirafraz Khan, he worked his way upwards by truly Afghan methods; methods which in the early days of his career were utterly detestable, but which attained some sort of reflected dignity later, when there were not wanting signs that in a different environment he might have been truly great. He was illiterate and uneducated, but appreciated the advantages of elementary schooling in others. Into the strange welter of political intrigue which forms Afghan history during the period of his rise to power we need not enter; but it is necessary to note the extraordinary difference with which the stranger in the land, a Feringhi, was regarded throughout Afghanistan, then, as compared with his reception at present. It is even possible that the life of a Feringhi was then safer (_i.e._ deemed of more importance) than that of any ordinary Afghan chief. It is certain that there was a strong feeling that it was well to be on good terms with the representatives of a powerful neighbouring state. This feeling was greatly weakened by the results of the first Afghan war, and has never again been completely restored.