In a sign of the way the winds were blowing, on 20 March Dost Mohammad’s Minister, Mirza Sami Khan, invited Vitkevitch as his guest of honour to celebrate Nauroz, the Persian New Year. Burnes was pointedly not invited until the party had already begun and then refused to go; but he asked his Indian assistant, Mohan Lal Kashmiri, to go in his stead.
