In 1854 he founded the CMS Afghan mission, the first European mission to the Afghans, in Peshawar—the doorway to Kabul and Central Asia. To achieve this, he crossed the Indus River, explored Kashmir and Ladakh, and penetrated some way into the Himalayas and western Tibet. At Peshawar, he worked with Karl Gottlieb Pfander, a Basel Mission missionary in Central Asia. He was sent back to England before the outbreak of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Sepoy Mutiny.