 While serving in Peshawar he was taught Pashto by the scholar Qazi Abdur Rahman Khan Muhammadzai (1827-1899) and Mirza Muhammad Ismail (1813-1912) and he began to study Afghan poetry.On retirement from the army, he returned to England and continued his oriental studies, culminating in his vast "Notes on Afghanistan and part of Baluchistan" and his unpublished "History of Herat".He died at Grampound Road, Cornwall, England in 1906.