William Moorcroft (explorer) - Bukhara, The Noble City

Bukhara, The Noble City

The journey to Tibet only served to whet Moorcroft's appetite for more extensive travel. But when he broached the idea of a new horse buying expedition to Bukhara in 1816, a searing reply from the Company Board of Managers warned Moorcroft to keep "steady" at his stud duties and not "waste his time" on "wild and romantick (sic) excursions to the banks of the Amoo (Amur) and the plains of Chinese Tartary." What Moorcroft coveted most were the Turkoman horses, with their pale golden coats, narrow chests, long necks and sturdy legs. The "good Turcoman horses" that Marco Polo had described some 500 years earlier could travel a hundred miles a day for weeks on end. Their descendants, the Akhal-Teke are bred to this day in Turkmenistan and Russia. Moorcroft persisted in his quest and his seven year campaign was finally rewarded in May 1819 when Charles Metcalfe, head of the Company's Political and Secret Department, granted him leave to proceed. Metcalfe's goal was to use his friend as an intelligence scout on his epic journey.

Moorcroft's preparations took nearly a year. His roster of recruits included the Persian, Mir Izzat Khan, who had already made the trip alone some years before and an Afghan, Gulam Hyder Khan from his previous expedition to Tibet. Nineteen year old George Trebeck, a recent arrival to Calcutta was selected as second in command. The total expedition totaled 300 persons, including an escort of 12 Gurkas, sixteen horses and mules, £4,000 of trading goods, and medical supplies and equipment.

Leaving the main caravan at the border to the Punjab on the Sutlej, Moorcroft traveled separately to Lahore to obtain permission from Ranjit Singh to traverse his territory. This was finally granted in mid May 1820. He met up with Trebeck and the rest of his party at Sultanpur in the Kulu valley in August. From there the caravan trekked up the Beas River, crossed the 13,300-foot (4,100 m) Rohtang Pass and descended into the Lahul valley and the city of Leh, capital of the Buddhist kingdom of Ladakh. Leh was reached on 24 September, and here several months were spent in exploring the surrounding country. A commercial treaty was concluded with the government of Ladakh, by which the whole of Central Asia was virtually opened to British trade in exchange for British protection. Unfortunately, this treaty would have required the Ladakhi's to break relations with Ranjit Singh, the Maharajah of the Sikh Empire. The East India Company placed a high value on its alliance with Ranjit Singh. Once again Moorcroft had overstepped his authority. His engagement with Ladakh was repudiated and his salary suspended. In all nearly two years were spent in Ladakh, awaiting permission from the Chinese in Yarkand to proceed.

While exploring Ladakh he had a chance encounter with another European, Alexander Csoma de Kőrös a penniless Hungarian philologist from Transylvania. Csoma was searching for the ancient Asian roots of the Hungarian language in the Tibetan tongue. Moorcroft shared his own Tibetan dictionary with the traveler. Csoma failed to prove his thesis but is now widely seen as the founder of Tibetology. It was Moorcroft who steered Kőrösi towards the compilation of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book for the East India Company.

Moorcroft continued his journeys; Kashmir was reached on 3 November 1822, Jalalabad on 4 June 1824, Kabul on 20 June, and Bokhara on 25 February 1825.

At Andkhoy, in Afghan Turkestan, Moorcroft was seized with fever, of which he died on the 27 August 1825, with Trebeck surviving him only a few days. But according to the Abbé Huc, Moorcroft reached Lhasa in 1826, and lived there twelve years, being assassinated on his way back to India in 1838.

In 1841, Moorcroft's papers were obtained by the Asiatic Society, and published, under the editorship of H. H. Wilson, under the title of Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hinduslan and the Punjab, in Ladakh and Kashnair, in Peshawur, Kabul, Kunduz and Bokhara, from 1819 to 1825.