280 
REVIEW. — MOORCROFT’S TRAVELS. 
The liberation of Mr. Moorcroft’s servants having been, with 
some difficulty, obtained by the efforts of the son of the Pirzada, 
they conveyed their master’s body to Balkh, where it was buried. 
***** 
Deprived of a leader, the other members of the party dispersed, 
and the property being left without a responsible owner, was 
seized upon by Ata Khan, the mutawala, or manager of the holy 
shrine at Mazar. The son of Wasir Ahmed managed, however, to 
secure a few horses, some of the property, and most of the papers of 
Mr. Moorcroft, and with these effected his return to Kabul, where 
his arrival was announced to Mr. Charles Trebeck, by Gwendas 
Sinh, a banker of Kabul, from whose report the circumstances 
attending the death of the travellers, as here particularized, are 
derived. The accounts collected by Lieut. Burnes on the spot are 
somewhat different. 
“ The caravan assembled outside the city, near to another me- 
lancholy spot — the grave of poor Moorcroft — which we were con- 
ducted to see. Mr. Guthrie lies by his side. It was a bright 
moonlight night, but we had some difficulty in finding the spot. 
At last, under a mud-wall, which had been purposely thrown over, 
our eyes were directed to it. The bigoted people of Balkh refused 
permission to the travellers being interred in their burial-ground, 
and only sanctioned it near the city, upon condition of its being 
concealed, lest any Mahommedan might mistake it for a tomb of 
one of the true believers, and offer up a blessing as he passed by it. 
The corpse of Moorcroft was brought from Andhkoh, where he 
perished at a distance from his party. He was attended by a few 
followers, all of whom were plundered by the people. If he died 
a natural death, I do not think he sank without exciting suspicion; 
he was unaccompanied by any of his European associates or con- 
fidential servants, and brought back lifeless on a camel, after a 
short absence of eight days. Mr. Trebeck’s health did not admit 
of his examining the body .” — Burnes Travels , i, 243. 
***** 
Mr. Moorcroft’s character as a traveller will also be best elicited 
from the perusal of his journals. In many respects he was most 
eminently qualified, and was not to be surpassed in determination, 
hardihood, endurance, and spirit of enterprise. His scientific attain- 
ments were strictly professional, and he had neither the preparatory 
training nor the means to investigate profoundly the mysteries of 
nature. Neither was he an oriental scholar or an antiquarian, al- 
though he had a practical use of some of the dialects of the East, 
and took a ready interest in the regains of antiquity which he 
encountered. His chief objects were on all occasions rural economy 
and manufactures, as he entertained a notion that much was to be 
