ig book supposed
to contain medical receipts, but which was in reality a box of
surveying instruments, its outside covered with cabalistic signs
bearing a family resemblance to a plane-table! The _Hukeem_ was much
given to solitary meditation, and generally sought mountain peaks for
that purpose. On such occasions the plane-table afforded him invaluable
assistance.

But we have said almost enough of poor McNair's adventure. On his
return he was ordered to Simla and officially reprimanded by the
Viceroy, Lord Ripon, for disobedience of orders! He was consoled,
however, by being told by the same nobleman at a private interview that
his pluck was admired, while his fast friend, Sir Charles McGregor,
received him with open arms. Such was the bright opening of a career
that was so soon to be cut short at Mussooree by typhoid fever.

McNair was a favourite with both sexes. By the men he was adored on the
cricket-field, where his bowling was most effective, while the girls,
who always possess second sight in the way of detecting a good fellow
when they see him, loved him _en masse_. It may be some consolation to
the widowed mother now robbed of her darling boy, to know that there
are heavy hearts in other homes besides her own--the purest tribute
that can be laid on the grave of one who was a good son as well as a
gallant explorer.

We note that the fever of which he died was contracted at Quetta.

_Extract from_ "The Pioneer," _August 20th,_ 1889.

THE LATE MR. McNAIR.--The lives of some men are so intimately connected
with certain phases in the general development of knowledge that their
biographies afford short but useful pages in the history of progress
which may well be read in connection with more stirring national
records. Thus it was with the life of a man who quietly passed from the
subordinate branch of the Survey Department into the land of shadows on
the 13th of this month at Mussoorie. At the commencement of the year of
grace 1879, a little over ten years ago, we were groping our way across
the borderland which separates India from Turkistan, in unhappy
ignorance of all but two or three partially illustrated lines of
advance which might land us either at Kabul or Kandahar. Considering
the vital importance that it always has been to India that at least a
creditable knowledge of the countries separating her from Russia should
exist, the geographical mist which enveloped the highlands of
Afghanistan and t