nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47able to leave their goods out at night without fear of theft and that the
roads were not infested with highwaymen. Burnes noted that the Tsar had
exchanged diplomatic missions with the Khan and that Bukhara and Russia
were on friendly terms, something which the Elphinstone mission had
already noted, but added, without any supporting evidence, that ‘the court
of St Petersburg have [sic] long cherished designs in this quarter of Asia’. 19
Arguably the most dangerous part of Burnes’s journey came after
the party left Bukhara as they decided to travel to Mashhad through
the Turkman desert, a region where qafilas were regularly attacked by
Turkman raiders and non-Sunni Muslims enslaved. Fortunately, before
leaving Bukhara the kush begi provided the travellers with rahdaris, or
road passes, sealed by the Khan himself, which required everyone not to
molest the farangis. Even so, they had some narrow escapes. The mission
eventually reached Tehran, where Burnes had an audience with Fath ‘Ali
Shah, before travelling to Bushire and taking ship for India. In all, he and
his fellow travellers had been on the road for just over a year.
Burnes landed in Calcutta to discover that he was a celebrity and the
toast of society, but this was nothing to the reception he received when
he arrived in London. Lionized by the cream of London society, Burnes’s
opinion was sought by cabinet ministers, the Board of Control, senior army
officers and even King William iv gave him a personal audience. When he
The citadel of Bukhara, residence of the Manghit Khans. Alexander Burnes stayed
here and in June 1892 Conolly and Stoddard were beheaded in its courtyard and buried
in unmarked graves.