Memoir of William Watts McNair | Page 2

neglect of a great scientific department of State, such as the Indian
Survey Department undoubtedly is, as a mere ornamental section of the
huge and complicated machinery of that gigantic Empire called India,
is but too often repeated by a department and its official heads in
regarding the merits of the living and the dead who sacrifice their lives
to its achievements; but in this one instance, at least, it cannot be said
that the head of a department fell beneath his opportunities for doing

himself and his subordinate due honour. It is not always from official
neglect, or human pride and indifference, that this want of sympathy for
human labour and human devotion arises, but rather from the infinite
preoccupations and monotonous overwork of the faculties of all public
servants of any position of importance in that vast continent of
swarming bees intent on their day's labour and nothing else. It is a good
token for the future that men shall feel their labour is appreciated,
although a desire for official recognition may be no incentive to the
devotion itself. It is certain that William McNair always valued the
appreciation of his official superiors, and that nothing could have given
him greater pleasure or more comfort, in his review of his own brief
labours, than to have known he would be thus remembered by the head
of his own department. To natures that regard the daily associations of
an arduous career as giving a sanctification all their own, the testimony
of colleagues--and, most of all, of the responsible mouthpiece of those
colleagues--is specially and naturally dear. Within this period of
twenty-two years' faithful service to the State occurred the remarkable
exploit, the account of which, as read in a paper before the Royal
Geographical Society of London, on the 10th December, 1883, I
transcribe into this memoir direct from the proceedings of that society,
published in the number for January, 1884, in the following words,
giving the substance of what was said by the President of the society,
who introduced the lecturer, and the several speakers who raised a
discussion on the subject of the paper after it had been read.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.[1]
A Visit to Kafiristan. By W.W. MCNAIR.
(Read at the Evening Meeting, December 10th, 1883.)
[1] In order to let the reader see how perfect was the disguise of
McNair during his Kafiristan expedition, I have prefixed to this
Memoir a portrait of McNair, taken a year or two before his death, and
to the paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, the group
attired as on their journey, with McNair in the centre, and his
Mahommedan friends around him.

In introducing Mr. McNair to the meeting, the President (Lord
Aberdare) said that the paper he was about to read was an account of a
visit he had recently made to Kafiristan. Mr. McNair had resided in
India for a long time previous to his adventurous journey, and whilst in
the service of the Topographical Department in the North-west of India,
had been employed in surveys beyond the frontier of Afghanistan. His
attention was thus directed to the interesting country which the paper
would describe. Kafiristan was a country of very peculiar interest. The
name Kafiristan, or the "country of infidels," was a nick-name given by
the surrounding Mahommedans, and was not that by which it was
called by the natives. It had long been a reproach to English
geographers that the only accounts of Kafiristan had been obtained
through Orientals themselves, whose statements had never been tested
by the actual visit of Europeans to the country. The consequence was
that a sort of mystery surrounded Kafiristan,--so much so that Colonel
Yule, when discussing an interesting paper by Colonel Tanner, on a
visit he made to the borders of the Kafir country three years ago, said
that when Kafiristan was visited and explored the Royal Geographical
Society might close the doors, because there would be no more new
work to be done. The veil had at last been drawn aside. It might be
asked why the country had been so long held inaccessible. The
explanation was that the inhabitants were always at war with their
Mahommedan neighbours, by whom they were surrounded on all sides,
and who had been extremely jealous of their communication with
European travellers. Mr. McNair had penetrated Kafiristan in disguise.
He (the President) had had an opportunity of seeing the paper, and he
found that Mr. McNair had not dwelt upon the historical geography of
Kafiristan, and therefore he would say a few words on that subject. As
long ago as 1809, Kafiristan attracted the attention of one of the ablest
public servants that England ever sent out to India--Mountstuart
Elphinstone--who was anxious to add to his "History of Kabul"