Murder in the Hindu Kush: George Hayward and the Great Game [Hardcover]

Fascinating account and captivating writing, filling in a gap in the story of exploration of the Hindu Kush and Pamirs, an area of the world which continues unsettled and that is difficult to access. Not many peope will now be aware of the travels of George Hayward, yet remarkable to think that the account of his death is still remembered by people in that remote area. A touching an poignant conclusion in Tim Hannigan's quest for some rationale surrounding the murder, also being aware of the politics that continue to direct and influence official accounts. Well worth a read.

George Hayward was one of the most enigmatic explorers in the huge mass of other enigmatic explorers of Central Asia. From the time of the Mongol conquests, up through the current day, the geography, political makeup, and history of this area has been rife with con men, religious crackpots (of every stripe), political agenda-enhancers, and military despots. If the natives alone were not, in many cases, despicable enough, the European travelers, from Marco Polo to the most recent trekking hippies and druggies were often just as bad.

One man, though, had no hidden agenda to pursue. He had no ulterior motives to accomplish, no desire to convert natives to Christianity, no reason make them subjects of a far-off sovereign. He only wanted to learn, to discover, to find things out. A lackluster military career prepared him for the rigors of mountain travel in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Obsessed by the unknown and unmapped high Pamir mountains, westernmost bulwark of the continent-spanning Himalaya, Hayward explored Turkestan, far western China, and what is now the Northern Areas of Pakistan during the late 1860s. Imagine this area - where come together Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. During the century-long "Great Game" between Britain and Russia, early explorers were often unwelcome visitors in the native areas. Internecine warfare was just as common then as now. Strangers were looked on as dangerous harbingers of outside meddling or control. Local rulers wanted no part of British or Russian spies.

During a tragically short exploration career, George Hayward traversed much of the forbidden and unknown western Himalaya on foot, with barely a horse or tent to make the going easier. One of the few nineteenth century explorers explicitly sponsored by England's Royal Geographic Society, he tried to go where no (white) man had gone before.

And all it did was get him murdered. Killed in a lonely wood dozens of miles from any settlement, the circumstances of his death are still murky, still unproven, and still a cause for wonder. However, thanks to this marvelous book by Mr Hannigan, many of the voids are filled in, many of the questions finally answered, and most of the conjecture laid to rest as incorrect, foolhardy, or just plain wrong.

Official India didn't really want Hayward wandering around out past the frontier - even though his maps and surveying made known areas that were just "blank spots on the map" prior to his travels. They made it known that he was on his own, much as any Westerner clambering round the hills and caves of eastern Afghanistan (or Iran's border with Iraq) would be today. They especially didn't want to hear about the atrocities committed against neighboring clans by armies of the Maharajah of Kashmir, then a semi-autonomous kingdom anxiously coddled by British India as a buffer against perceived Russian encroachment across the Hindu Kush. Ignored by the officials, Heyward published an incendiary letter in the local papers accusing the Maharajah of slaughtering upwards of 200 men, women and children in an area west of Gilgit known as the Darkot Valley. He then rode right back into the area, almost daring the Maharajah's wrath.

What happened, how it happened, and who may have been responsible, is the main subject of Hannigan's book. Many other volumes though the years have briefly touched on Hayward's career, but since his light flashed so briefly, and in all honesty, so inconsequentially, during the Great Game, he was relegated to little more than a few paragraphs here and there in much larger books. But Mr Hannigan has now filled that 'blank spot on the map' with his admirable, well-researched book that brings to life this formerly unknown character, and places the reader firmly in the saddle along with Heyward as he trudges up and down the cold, rocky ridges of the Himalaya, across waist-deep snow in passes over a dozen thousands of feet in elevation, and across dry, desolate deserts. You're with Heyward, and another early traveler, the tea planter Robert Shaw, as they're held in virtual captivity for months on end in a remote outpost of the Turkestan emir. You are there as Heyward's reports and surveys are presented to an astonished Royal Geographical Society, his named stamped on the Founder's Gold Medal even as he, thousands of miles away, rode inexorably onwards to his tragic destiny.

I highly recommend this book to any devotee of Central Asian history, any lover of explorers and exploration, and indeed, anyone interested in events that could just as easily have happened last week rather than 140 years ago.

A wonderfully written book by Tim H.as he follows in the footsteps of Geo.Hayward a 19th century trailblazer...reveting stuff & an amazing journey...READ THIS!