George Scott Robertson

Some have suggested that Robertson's year-long expedition and subsequent book (originally published in 1896) provided background and inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King".

He asked the Government of India for permission to journey to Kafiristan, and by October 1889 was on his way, departing from Chitral in what is now northwest Pakistan in the company of several Kafir headmen of the Kam tribe.

In 1895 he brought a force of around 400 soldiers, under the direct command of Captain Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, from Gilgit to oversee the transfer of power in Chitral following the death of its ruler, Aman ul-Mulk.

After his arrival, Robertson engaged in a series of complex political and military manoeuvres, during which hostility from local tribesmen led to his forces to move into Chitral Fort for protection.

Although its descriptions of the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush are written in an outdated and colonial (and, from the perspective of modern sensibilities, discriminatory) style, the work contains some of the only accounts of the region from that time period.