TRACKING DAD MAHOMED. 225 



reliable authority that Dad Mahomed had passed 

 over the frontier into Russian Turkistan, and the 

 idea was that he would go on from there to his 

 native place, Kabul. He therefore sent one of 

 his men off to Tashkurgan, where the Amir of 

 Afghanistan then was, with the authority of the 

 English Government to take him. The man 

 had an interview with the Amir, who told him to 

 search where he liked, he would not impede him, 

 but that he did not think Dad Mahomed was in 

 the country, which proved to be the case. 



Another man, a moonshi in the service of the 

 Government at Ladak, Shamshuddin by name, 

 had been sent into Fargana to try and trace him 

 there, and going over the frontier to Osh, he pro- 

 ceeded to Marghilan. There, hearing a rumour 

 that the man had passed through that place on 

 his way to Samarkand, the conjecture was that he 

 had gone off to Mecca on a pilgrimage. It was 

 the moonshi's last chance : if Dad Mahomed had 

 gone to Mecca he would have reached it long 

 since, and there would be no possibility of catch- 

 ing him. The moonshi therefore started immedi- 

 ately for Samarkand, and as he strolled through 

 the bazaar the first day, whom should he see, to 

 his intense astonishment, but the very man he 



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