George W. Hayward

Hayward was long believed to have been Irish but research in the 1990s by Charles Timmis revealed that he was in fact a Yorkshireman, born at Headingley Hall on the outskirts of Leeds.

[2] Hayward appeared in England in 1868 and approached Sir Henry Rawlinson, vice president of the Royal Geographical Society.

[3] Although the Royal Geographical Society was strictly apolitical, Rawlinson was also a member of the government's India Council and a known Russophobe.

Another Englishman, Robert Shaw, uncle of Sir Francis Younghusband, was making a similar journey to Yarkand and Kashgar at the same time.

While awaiting permission to proceed at the Kashgaria border Hayward escaped from his guards and spent 20 days exploring and charting the course of the Yarkand River.

Shaw reached Kashgaria in December 1868 after sending ahead envoys announcing his arrival and carrying with him gifts for Yakub Beg.

Afterwards he was free to return home and was able to arrange for Hayward's release as well as that of Mirza Shuja, a Pundit exploring the region for Britain.

[2] For his efforts exploring the Kun Lun and Karakoram mountains, and the route of the Upper Yarkand River during his approach to Kashgaria Hayward was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal.

In search of a new approach to the Pamirs he visited the Yasin Valley and became friends with Mir Wali who convinced him it was impossible to proceed through the Hindu Kush until the summer thaw.

The publication of the letter caused a minor political storm, as the Maharaja of Kashmir, Ranbir Singh, was a close British ally and vassal.

[3][4] An alternate version - that which was least convenient for the British - had it that the Maharaja of Kashmir had arranged Hayward's death as revenge for the letter about the Kashmiri atrocities in Dardistan.

His tombstone, paid for by the Maharaja of Kashmir, reads: "To the memory of G. W. Hayward, Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society of London, who was cruelly murdered at Darkot, 18 July 1870, on his journey to explore the Pamir steppe.

In the 1930s Colonel Reginald Schomberg, a British traveller, passed through Darkot and said local families still possessed Hayward's pistol, telescope and saddle.

The poem is about the stoic death of the explorer George Hayward (c. 1839 – 18 July 1870), captured and killed in Kashmiri territory.

[6] His story is also covered briefly in The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk, and Explorers of the Western Himalayas by John Keay.