Soon after the marriage she nominated him archbishop of St Andrews, in succession to Elphinstone, archbishop-designate.
Elphinstone Dalrymple, with Messrs Hill and Johnstone, finishing in December 1873, effected a valuable survey of the inlets and navigable rivers in the Cape York Peninsula.
Baber always calls the range Hindu Kush, and the way in which he speaks of it shows clearly that it was a range that was meant, not a solitary pass or peak (according to modern local use, as alleged by Elphinstone and Burnes).
Rennell and Elphinstone familiarized it.
The most valuable permanent result of the embassy was the literary fruit it bore several years afterwards in Elphinstone's great work on Kabul.