Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/261



December last (1830) a communication was made to the council of the Royal Geographical Society, by Major Archer, a member, recently returned from India, stating that Mr. Moorcroft, the well-known Indian traveiler, had, after his examination of Lake Manasawara, as detailed in the Asiatic Researches, penetrated into the Thibetian province of Ladakh, resided some time at its capital, Leh, and thence proceeded to Bokhara, where he died; and as the particulars of this expedition had never yet been published, it was submitted that an examination of whatever correspondence relating to it might be found in the India House, or could be procured on inquiry made in India, could scarcely fail to elicit new and valuable information. And the council having approved of this suggestion, the necessary steps were taken to act on it, and a mass of papers has thus been obtained, of which it may be interesting to members, and to the public, to have some general account. They were su plied by the favour of W. Astell, Esq. late chairman of the Honourable the Court of East India Directors, and W. Stanley Clarke, Esq., a director, to whom Mr. Barrow made the requisite applications; and having been selected from the entire amount of Mr. Moorcroft's correspondence preserved in the Company's records, and in great measure also transcribed by Lieutenant Brand, R.N. (to whom this laborious task was proposed, and who executed it with great zeal, and altogether gratuitously) they have been since revised and arranged by the Honourable Mr. Mounstuart Elphinstone, who has added some explanatory notes where they appeared wanting.

The ostensible object of Mr. Moorcroft's journey was to purchase horses for the Company, with a view as well to improve the breed as to increase the numbers in its stud, of which he was one of the superintendents in Upper India. Besides this, he was to report on the openings which he might meet with for trade amongst a people of whom so little was then, and still is, known. And subordinate to both objects was the determination of positions, and a geographical description of the countries visited. With such a multiplicity of objects before him, his papers are necessarily miscellaneous and of unequal value: yet in selecting from them it has been thought only just to his memory, and to the opportunity thus possessed of examining papers which are not likely in any other way to see the light, not to be too fastidious in the choice; and whatever appeared either new or curious, or in any