The papers consist of a letter from Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange to Captain Henry Harkness, Secretary, Royal Asiatic Society, to send an extract from a letter that he had received from his son, Thomas Lumisden Strange in Tellicherry, (Thalassery) India. Strange asks that the extract be brought before the Council of the Society, if Harkness deems it of sufficient importance. This letter is dated 9 February, 1837. The extract, dated 4 September 1836, is written in a different hand. It concerns the attempt by Francis Rawdon Chesney to find an overland route to India via the Euphrates. Thomas Lumisden Strange recommends that the route should continue to be explored despite the loss of life on the expedition, and believed that the Persian Sultan 'might be induced to farm to us this division of his dominions'.