afghanistanvisited his home town of Montrose, the mayor held a public banquet in his
honour. Burnes was promoted to captain, the Royal Geographical Society
awarded him the Gold Medal (Burnes’s portrait, showing him dressed as
an Afghan noble, still dominates the staircase at Lowther Lodge, the rgs’s
headquarters) and the Athenaeum, Britain’s most exclusive gentlemen’s
club, admitted him to membership without the customary ballot. Burnes
also received numerous offers of marriage from well-connected families,
but he knew to have taken a wife at such an early stage in his career would
end his hopes of rising to the very top of his profession – and Burnes was
nothing if not ambitious.
In between his round of society visits, Burnes rushed out an account of
his travels that sold out on the day it appeared and eventually ran to several
editions. As well as making him a small fortune, his Travels into Bokhara
helped to fuel the celebrity status and mystique of ‘Bokhara Burnes’.
Nonetheless he was not enthusiastic about certain aspects of Ellenborough’s
policy. Burnes agreed that trade with the Central Asian states was possible
and desirable, but argued for greater political involvement in the region.
Amir Dost
Muhammad Khan,
founder of the
Muhammadzai
dynasty. His war with
the Sikhs and Persia
unwittingly dragged
him into the sphere
of British Imperial
policy. His attempts to
seek a rapprochement
with Britain failed,
mainly due to British
officials’ refusal to
take into account
the Amir’s internal
political difficulties.
In the end, though,
Britain did pursue
treaty arrangements
with the Amir and by
the end of his reign,
Afghanistan was
increasingly a key
element in Britain’s
Defence of India
policy.