The interest of Moorcroft's adventures so far as we are now concerned commences with his journey from Peshawar to Kabul, Badakshan and Bokhara in 1824, when he was undoubtedly the first in the field of British Central Asiatic exploration. He owed his safe conduct from Peshawar (which place he reached only after some most unpleasant experiences in passing through the Sikh dominions of the Punjab) to a political crisis. Dost Mahomed Khan was consolidating his power at Kabul, but he had not then squared accounts with Habibullah the son of the former governor, his deceased elder brother Mahomed Azim Khan; and certain other members of his family (his brothers, Yar Mahomed, Pir Mahomed, and Sultan Mahomed), who were governors in the Indus provinces, thought it as well to step in and effect an arrangement. It was their stately march to Kabul which was Moorcroft's opportunity. Those were days when an Englishman was yet of interest to the Afghan potentate, who knew not what turn of fortune's wheel might necessitate an appeal for the intervention of the English.
Moorcroft did not love the Afghans, and between the unauthorised robbers of the Kabul road and the official despoilers of the city he paid dearly for the right of transit through Afghanistan of himself and his merchandise. It was this assumed rôle of merchant (if indeed it was assumed) that hampered Moorcroft from first to last in his journeys beyond the frontier of British India. There was something to be made out of him, either by fair means or foul, and the rapacious exactions to which he was subjected were probably not in the least modified by his obstinate refusals to meet what he considered unjust demands. Invariably he had to pay in the end. His account of the road to Kabul is interesting from the keen observation which he brought to bear on his surroundings. He has much to say about the groups of Buddhist buildings which are so marked a feature at various points of the route, and his previous experiences in Tibet left him little room for doubt as to the nature of them. It is strange that locally there was not a tale to be told, not even a legend about them, which even indefinitely maintained their Buddhist origin.