The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-21 00:00:00

plishment, will be taken from as. The project '
une of Mr. O'Ferrall's. who ►ores but little what in-
jury he doe• the island, provid►d only he swells the
revenue.
A census is ordered to he taken of the populntion
of the Wand and its dependencies, on or by the
26th instant to the 31st, when the lists will be
cloned.

INDIA AND CHINA.

THE OVERLAND MAIL.

We have received in anticipation of the India
mails uur usual despatches and tiles to the following

dates ;-11onihay, Feb. 16; Calcutta, Feb. 7 ; Hong.
Kong, Jan. :14) ; and Singapore, Feb. 6.
We (Boo Airy Muss) mentioned in our lad
the investment of the fort of Itharoor in the
NJ:mm*4 dominion:4, taken posse-'lion of and for
a time defended by the ltohillas confined in
it as prisoners. 'We have since received ac-
counts of its surrender. The force summoned by

Brigadier Dentate, amounting to upwards of 2,160
nicn with eight pieces of ordnance, having all ar-
rived by the With January, operations were com-
menced next day. Though the besieged must have
fat 00111VADC011 tie 11101•1111l6 Omar mor arraboabsso-ia
their neighbourhood, commanded by such an
officer as Brigadier Beatson, that all hope
of 111/0(11,4 was vain, they determined to
hold out till the last. Two bastions necinted
with heavy guns, and ea:amending the posi-
tion meant to be taken up hi breaching, were
first silenced and their butteries disabled ; the artil-
lery then took up a position about four hundred
yards from the nearest wall, and the work of de-
stnwtion begun. The parapet was easily knocked
away, and in thirteen hours the breach wa-. pro-
nounced practicable, and was to have beeu forced
on the morning of the 4th. Sonic sixty volunteers
from each of the cavalry carps haying been called
fir, such was the spirit that the whole fore! pre-
canted themselves, each portion tate-ming to be
allowed to take the lead. App...hensive of the
emserpmeees of further resistance when the fort
was no longer defensible, the besiev,el announced
their readiness to surrender unconditionally, and
has ing laid down their arm at the top, calm out
through the breach, the gateways having. been
built up by themselves. They numbered in all
about 140 ; them were three lisavy and fifteen
light guns in the fort. Two of the Rohillas had
been killed, and six or seven wounded. They were

taken as prisoners to Meninahad, where they wait
to be put meter still more severe restraint thin he-
fore. Brigai Beatson returns to Etunqe: by the
steamer of the :;rd March. It is currently reyorted
that a large slice—Beniar, it is sold--of the Nixam's
dominions is about to he ceded to us in compensation
for the money due (000.000/.) by the ruler to the
British government, the interest of which forms so
heavy a charge on his revenue, the principal of
which he is never likely to ply in cask Under the
present Ouvernor-General there is every reason to
believe that the arrangement will be an equitable
and liberal one: praise that but few of our enemies
molts for extension of territory can -The
visit of the Govenior-General to Peeluiwur is
eaid to be likely to exercise a highly heuelieial in-
fluence on the settlement of the frontier question.
On the 22nd January the Ist Punjaub Irregular
Cavalry (Daly's) left P-shawur for Kohut: they
are scud to hive marched through the Klayher Push
without firearms, under the escort of a mountain
chief. They reached Mennee the slur they started,
and Kohut the day following—right through the de-
file, and over the mountain ridge, at one stretch.
They encountered no molestation nor olestruction in
their way. The 2nd Punjuub Cavalry arc at present
on their way from the Yousoufzuie country to Bun-
nun. The walls and works round Lahore sire all
beim; dismantled. with the view to the opening up,
ventilating, and cleaning of the city. The expenses
of these municipal improvements are met by the
levying of a petty custom, such as is com-
a home, on articles entering into the town
Mr We; and so highly are the improvements ap-
preciated, and so lightly is the tax felt, that °tier
large towns within the l'imitub have upplied for
the extension of the system to them. Funds suffi-
cient both for 'Aire and conservancy purposes are
expected to be raised in this fashion, without taxing
the resources of the state. The civil officers through-
out
the country have been instructed to forward, be.
fore the let Ifarch, to the Board of Administrution,
a detailed report on the state and prospects of the
various departments under their charge, as the
Governor-General, it is said, purposes to prepare fur
the Court of Directors a general report of the condi-
tion of the country—a more interesting or valuable
doe mt con haidly be imagined. The Governor-
General left flawed Pilate, on his way to
Peshawur on the :10th, for Kalalingh on the
Indus, where the river tones its way through a
tremendous chasm in the Salt Mange. Snit is
excavated on an immense scale, and there arc some
score of alum factories clone at hand. In this neigh-
' bonrhoed the geological surveys, of which 1)r. A.
Phoning is the head, arc at present employed—eta-
tistieal and scientific inquire now beginning to have
the imtiortant place assigned to it which it occupies
throughout the rest of the world. Hie lordship is
said to he defames of meeting the savans within the
geld of their labours, and of inspecting the tremen-
dous rapids of the Indus along with the officers of
the Indian navy appointed to meet him at Kalalingh.
A new cantonment for troops is proposed to be
established in the Bane Doeub : a committee has
been appointed to loek out for a site. and the most
eligible at present appears to be considered near to
the old fort of Itungul Muugul. Though the
British government have been m virtual occupa-
tion of Lahore for five years. and in actual posses-
sion of it for two, there having been from twelve
hundred to two thousand European residents with
their families close by, no protestant place of public
worship has yet been constructed : a large apartment
in the residency was wont to be assigned for divine
service be Sir M. Lawrence; this has since been
converted into public offices. A large Mahomedan
tomb was next made use of as a church; this also
was withdrawn, and the mess of H.M.'s 14th Dra-
goons has of late been usually mask use of. The
Roman catholics, though a small fraction of the
whole, have for some time past possessed a couple
of chapels, erected by themselves for their own
use. The Punjaub promises to afford us something
like an illustration of what India might have been
compared to what it now is, had its destinies all
along been guided by such hands as those in which
they at present rest. The area of our territories would
protably have been one-half its present extent—
the income derived from them ten times, the bene-
fit conferred on them ten thousand times, what it
now is. So stem as the arrangements for the pre-
servation of order and maintenance of the public
peace were made, including amongst them the dis-
arming of the people, and the attention to the admi-
nistration of government and manngement of public
affair immediately demanded had been bestowed—
the physical capabilities of the country for improve-
ment were inquired into. The Barre Daub Canal,
with its branches, now in prams of construction, ex-
tends over a length of 4:so miles; it will water an
area of alewe half a million of acres now bcrren, and
euptie oecup lion and samoet t) prohaLly a couple
'of milioes of peoL'e. It will cast at first half a
militia sterling, with a charge of 20,J001. a year
for maintenance, yielding yearly a direct m-
oronic of 120,0001., or twenty-four per cent.,
with probably twice as much in indirect return!
The moment that this project was started, and plans
arranged for carrying it out entrusted to the execu-
tive, government turned its attention to the moral
and intellectual condition of the people. It appeared
by inquiry that there was no foundation whatever
for the belief so generally entertained of the univer-
sality of brooding apathy and ignorance amongst the