Sent to India aged just sixteen to make his fortune, Alexander Burnes soon revealed an extraordinary talent for languages, combined with a boyish charm, insatiable curiosity, and irrepressible enthusiasm. By the age of 26 he had so impressed his superiors that he was entrusted with the task of delivering a gift of horses from King William IV to the Maharajah of Lahore. In reality he was acting as a diplomat and spy. Having succeeded, he was then dispatched on a much more dangerous mission, to explore the political and ethnic realities amongst the Khanates of Afghanistan and Central Asia. This travelogue brings the heady sense of excitement, risk, and zeal of Alexander Burnes' missions.