One would be apt to gather a pessimistic idea of lower Badakshan from the pages of Moorcroft's story, which are undoubtedly tinted strongly with the gloomy and grey colouring of his own unhappy experiences. Of Balkh he has very little to say; he noted no antiquities about Balkh, but he calls attention to the wide spaces covered with ruins which are to be found at intervals scattered over the plains between Balkh and the Oxus. It is a little difficult to follow his exact route across the Oxus plains by the light of modern maps, but his Feruckabad is probably our Feruk, and I gather that his Akbarabad is Akcha or Akchaabad. The condition of Balkh, of Akcha, and of the ruin-studded plains of the Oxus were evidently much the same in 1824 as they were in 1884. Khwaja Salar (where Moorcroft crossed the Oxus in ferry-boats drawn by horses) has since become historical. It was accepted in the Anglo-Russian protocols defining the Afghan boundary as an important point in the Russo-Afghan boundary delimitation, but it was not to be found. Moorcroft gives a very good reason for its disappearance, by stating that the place was razed to the ground just the day before he arrived there. Since then the ruins of the old village have been devoured by the shifting Oxus, and nothing but a ziarat at some distance from the river remains as a record of the distinguished saint who gave it its name. CHAPTER XIV BURNES No traveller who ever returned to his country with tales of stirring adventure ever attracted more interest, or even astonishment, than Lieut. Alexander Burnes. He published his story in 1835, when the Oxus regions of Asia were but vaguely outlined and shadowy geography. It did not matter that they had been the scene of classical history for more than 2000 years, and that the whole network of Oxus roads and rivers had been written about and traversed by European hosts for centuries before our era. That story belonged to a buried past, and the British occupation of India had come about in modern history by way of the sea. England and Russia were then searching forward into Central Asia like two blind wrestlers in the dark, feeling their ground before them ere they came to grips. A veil of mystery hung over these highlands, a geographical fog that had thickened up, with just a thinner space in it here and there, where a gleam of light had penetrated, but never dispersed it, since the days when Assyrian and Persian, Skyth, Greek, and Mongul wandered through the highest of Asiatic highways at their own sweet will.