ABSTRACT
Commissioned in 1888 into the 16th Lancers based in India, he transferred forthwith to the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays) and subsequently to the Indian Political Service. He was sent on his first intelligence mission to Central Asia in 1892, aged only twenty-five, inter alia to report on the Transcaspian Railway. His second, the following year, entailed a six-month ride through Persia under cover of rejoining his regiment in India. This was the start of a love affair with that country which remained to the end of his life.
