Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 62
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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DECEMBER, 1933]
NEW LIGHT ON CHARLES MASSON
NEW LIGHT ON CHARLES MASSON.
BY FRANK E. ROSS. Among explorers of Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century the name of Charles Masson is by no means the least noteworthy. Historians have noted his work and given him due credit-but have been unable to clear up the mooted question of his nationa. lity. The recent discovery of the Masson MSS. in the India Office at London enables the author to reveal Masson's origin and to fill in several gaps in his career.
James Lewis, for such was Masson's real name, was born in Aldermanbury, Middlesex, England, on February 16, 1800. His father, George Lewis, of London, married Mary Hopcraft, of Northamptonshire, on March 6, 1799. George Lewis became a Freeman of the Needle Makers' Company in February 1799 and a Liveryman of that Company in November 1800.
In 1821 James Lewis enlisted in the British Army and embarked on board the Dutchess of Athol, January 17, 1822, for Bengal. While serving as a private soldier in the Bengal Artillery he attracted the especial notice of Major-General Hardwicke, commandant of that corps, who employed him in arranging the Hardwicke collection of zoological specimens. As a trooper in Captain Hyde's First Brigade of Horse Ar:illery Masson served in the siege of Bharatpur. Shortly thereafter he and a fellow trooper named Potter deserted, July 4, 1826, and went to the Panjab.
Taking the name of Charles Masson, Lewis began a long and distinguished career of exploration and antiquarian research in Central Asia. British officials whom he encountered in his travels were told that his name was Masson and that he was a native of the State of Kentucky, U.S.A. Never thereafter (1826) did he use the name Lewis. His nationality was sometimes contraverted (Asiatic Journal, London, April 1841), but not authoritatively; officials of the East India Company kept their own counsel.
Traversing Rājputānā, Masson entered Bahāwalpur, journeyed to Peshāwar (1827), and through the Khaibar Pass on the high road to Kābul. From Kābul he went to Ghazni, where he interviewed Dost Muhammad Khān, Amir of Kabul. Proceeding to Qandahar, he made a remarkable journey to Shikarpur via Quetta and the Bolan Pass. He then visited the Panjāb, and finally voyaged to Persia via the Persian Gulf. At Beshire (1830) he prepared lengthy memoranda of his travels for the British Resident, printed in George W. Forrest, Selections from the Travels and Journals preserved in the Bombay Secretariat, Bombay, 1906, pp. 103-187.
Proceeding to Urmara, on the Makrān coast, Masson sustained himself by the practice of medicine, until his professional reputation declined, following an injudicious prescription of sea water for a purge. Travelling through Las Bela and eastern Baluchistan to Kalāt, he was the first white man to climb the heights of Chahiltan, near Quetta, whose misty legend he recorded.
During the next few years Masson engaged in archæological excavation and exploration in Afghánistān. By 1834 he had obtained many ancient coins, which he transferred to the Government of India for preservation in the East India Company's museum at London, in exchange for an allowance. Thus financed, he continued his work with notable success, which he described in articles and letters in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Cal. cutta, April, July, 1834, April 1835, January, March, September, November, 1836, Jaruary 1837 and in a valuable "Memoir on the Topes and Sepulchral Monuments of Afghanistan," printed in H. H. Wilson, Ariana Antiqua: A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan, London, 1841, pp. 55.118. By 1837 tho Masson collection of coins totalled between fifteen and twenty thousand. It “proved a veritable revelation of unknown kings and dynasties, and contributed enormously to our positive knowledge of Central Asian history” (Thomas H. Holdich, The Gates of India, London, 1910, page 394).
