BURNES, SIR ALEXANDER (1805-1841), British trav eller and explorer, was born at Montrose, Scotland, on May 16, 1805. He joined the army of the East India Company at 17, and in 1822 became interpreter at Surat. Transferred to Cutch in 1826 as assistant to the political agent, he turned his attention to the history and geography of north-western India and the adjacent countries. In 1831 he was sent to Lahore with a present of horses from King William IV. to Maharaja Ranjit Singh and made ex tensive investigations. Next year he started from Lahore, dis guised as an Afghan, and made his way across Afghanistan to Balkh, from there to Bukhara, Asterabad and Teheran, and across Persia to Bushire, where he embarked for England. His Travels to Bokhara (1834) brought him acknowledgment from the geo graphical societies of London and Paris, and were widely read. After his return to India he undertook (1836) a political mission to Dost Mohammed at Kabul. He advised Lord Auckland to support Dost Mohammed on the throne of Kabul, but the viceroy reinstated Shah Shuja. On the restoration of Shah Shuja in 1839, he became regular political agent at Kabul. He was assassinated on Nov. 2, 1841. In 1861 it was found that some Burnes' des patches from Kabul in 1839 had been altered, so as to convey opinions opposite to his, but Lord Palmerston refused after such a lapse of time to grant the inquiry demanded in the House of Com mons. A narrative of his Afghan experiences is given in his post humously published Cabool (1842).
See Sir J. W. Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers (1889).