The Masson collection of coins, which totalled between 15,000 and 20,000 in 1837, and which was presented to the East India Company, proved a veritable revelation of unknown kings and dynasties, and contributed enormously to our positive knowledge of Central Asian history. The vast number of Cufic coins found at Begram show that the city must have existed for some centuries after the Mahomedan invasion. Chinese travellers tell of a city called Hupian in this neighbourhood, but Masson is inclined to place the site of Hupian near Charikar, where there was, in his time, a village called Malek Hupian. He thinks that Begram had certainly ceased to exist at the time of Timur's expedition to India; or that conqueror would not have found it necessary to construct a canal from the Ghorband stream in order to colonize this favoured corner of the Kabul plain. The canal still exists as the Mahighir, and the people of the neighbourhood talked Turki in Masson's time. Three miles east of Kabul there is another ancient site known as Begram. This was probably the precursor of Kabul itself, and other "Begrams" are known in India. The term appears to be generic and to denote a famous site. Buddhist relics lie thickly round about the Afghan Begrams, groups of them being very abundant throughout the Kabul valley. It was after his first visit to Begram that Masson became acquainted with M. Honigberger, whom he describes as a gentleman from Lahore bent on archaeological research; and at the close of the autumn Dr. Gerard, the companion of Lieut. Burnes, appeared at Kabul. Honigberger's researches, like those of Gerard, appear to have been confined to archæology, and the results of them form an interesting story which was given to the world by Eugene Jacquet; but as neither of these gentlemen can be said to have contributed to the early geographical knowledge of the country, no further reference need be made to them, beyond remarking that Honigberger very narrowly escaped being murdered on his subsequent journey to Bokhara. Masson's extraordinary capability of dealing with every class of people with whom he came in contact, and his consequent apparent immunity from the dangers which beset the ordinary unaccredited traveller, should not lead to the assumption that Afghanistan was a safe country to travel in at the time of our first political negotiations, in spite of there being less fanaticism at that time; whilst the trans-Oxus states were then almost unapproachable. There, at least, the gradual encroachment of Russian civilization has absolutely altered the conditions of European existence, and Bokhara has become quite a favourite resort for tourists.