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Rome proved too much for the Papal Curia, he was bundled into a coach and deported. Arriving in England, he found that Anglicanism suited him and decided to become a missionary. His tales of travels through Central Asia, during which he had been kidnapped, robbed, shipwrecked, threatened with being burned alive and stripped of all he possessed, and especially his account of the kingdom of Bokhara, fascinated Burnes.
    Leaving Gerard to recover, Burnes and his new friend accepted an invitation to call on Dost Mohammed in the great gray fortress, the ancient Balla Hissar, overlooking the city. The Afghan leader, now in his midforties, was often described as resembling an Old Testament prophet. He had an aquiline nose, hazel-gray eyes and every Thursday had his thick beard dyed black ready for the Friday Muslim Sabbath. Seating his guests close by him, he showed a lively curiosity, questioning them about everything from how Europe’s kings coexisted without destroying one another, the extent of Britain’s wealth (which, he asserted, “must come from India”), whether the British had designs on Kabul, the uses of steam engines and what the Chinese were like. He then asked the purpose of Burnes’s journey and why he was dressed as he was. Burnes replied that he had a great desire to travel and was returning to Europe by way of Bokhara. He had changed his clothing for safety and comfort but had no intention of trying to conceal from Dost Mohammed that he “was an Englishman.”
    Burnes was soon enamored of populous, bustling Kabul, writing to his mother that “truly, this is a paradise.” Together with Mohan Lal he wandered the narrow winding streets of baked-mud brick houses and admired the bazaars piled with the city’s fabled fruit: grapes, pears, apples, apricots, quinces, melons and rhubarb. However, he was most interested in the people, sauntering about in sheepskin cloaks that made them look huge. Mohan Lal thought the Kabul women promiscuous despite their head-to-toe coverings and in his journal inscribed the proverb: “The flour of Peshawar is not without the mixture of barley; and the women of Kabul are not without lovers.”
    The two men visited the Armenian quarter, whose inhabitants complained that because of the prohibition on alcohol by Dost Mohammed—“a reformed drunkard”—they had lost their main means of support, though Burnes noted that wine could still be found and that it tasted like Madeira. They also explored the area in the shadow of the Balla Hissar inhabited by the Kizzilbashis, descendants of the soldiers left behind by the Persian Nadir Shah, of whom Dost Mohammed’s mother was one. However, Burnes could not linger. He had hoped to join one of the great caravans traveling north from Kabul but learned that the northern passes were still snowbound and he would have to wait. Instead, he decided to form his own small caravan and hired “a hale old man who had grown grey in crossing the Hindu Kush” as their personal cafila-bashee , or “conductor.” Nawab Jubbar Khan, who was convinced Burnes and his companions would all be slain or taken as slaves, pressed him to take with him his steward’s brother and provided Burnes with letters of introduction to the emir of Bokhara.
    At Burnes’s final meeting with Dost Mohammed, the Afghan ruler laid bare his political difficulties, including his difficult relations with his half brothers in Peshawar and Kandahar. He was especially virulent about Ranjit Singh and asked Burnes whether the British would accept his help to destroy the maharaja—a question that would bedevil Dost Mohammed’s relations with Britain and to which Burnes could only reply that the maharaja was a “friend” of the British. Changing tack, Dost Mohammed startled Burnes by offering him the command of his army, an honor he courteously declined. Before Burnes left, Dost Mohammed ordered a slave boy brought before them because he thought Burnes would want to see a member of