[12] The latest reports indicate that there is now a road fit for motor traffic between Kabul and Afghan Turkistan, as well as between Kabul and Badakshan.
One of the most disappointing of the early British explorers of our Indian trans-frontier was Moorcroft. Disappointing, because he got so little geographical information out of so large an area of adventure. Moorcroft was a veterinary surgeon blessed with an unusually good education and all the impulse of a nomadic wanderer. He was Superintendent of the H.E.I. Company's stud at Calcutta, and his views on agricultural subjects generally, especially the improvement of stock, were certainly in advance of his time, although it seems extraordinary that he should have sought further inspiration in the wilds of the then unexplored trans-Himalayas or in Central Asia. The Government of India were evidently sceptical as to the value of such researches, and he received but cold comfort from their grudging spirit of support, which ended in a threat to cut off his pay altogether after a few years' sojourn in Ladak whilst studying the elementary principles of Tibetan farming. Neither would they supply him with the ample stock of merchandise which he asked for as a means of opening up trade with those chilly countries; and when, finally, he assumed the position of a high political functionary, and became the vehicle of an offer to the Government of India of the sovereignty of Ladak (which certainly might have led to complications with the Sikh Government of the Punjab) he was rather curtly told to mind his own business.
On the whole, it is tolerably clear that the Government represented by old John Company was not much more favourable to irresponsible travelling over the border and political intermeddling than is our modern Imperial institution. However, the fact remains that Moorcroft showed a spirit of daring enterprise, which led to the acquirement of a vast amount of most important information about countries and peoples contiguous to India of whom the Government of the time must have been in utter ignorance. When he first exploited Ladak, Leh was the _ultima thule_ of geographical investigation. What lay beyond it was almost blank conjecture, and a residence of two years must have ended in the amassing of a vast fund of useful information. Unfortunately, much of that information was lost at his death, and the correspondence and notes which came into the hands of his biographer were of such a character--so extraordinarily discursive and frequently so little relevant to the subject of his investigation--as to leave an impression that Moorcroft was certainly eccentric in his correspondence if not in more material ways. We get very little original geographical suggestion from him; but his constant and faithful companion Trebeck is much more consistent and careful in such detail as we find due to his personal observation, and it is to Trebeck rather than Moorcroft that the thanks of the Asiatic map-maker are due. With the Ladak episodes of Moorcroft's career we have nothing to do here, beyond noting that there is ample evidence that he never reached Lhasa, and never resided there, in spite of the persistent rumours which prevailed (even in Tibet) that a traveller of his name had lived in the city. It is exceedingly difficult to account for this rumour, unless indeed we credit the authors of it with a confusion of ideas between Lhasa, the capital of Tibet proper, and Leh, the capital of little Tibet.