The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-28 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 28, 1854.

CSMO RAM A. OF ST. PETERSBURG,
ROYAL PA.NOPTICON, Leicester-square.—A COSMORAMA
of ST. F ETERS BURG, including a Portrait of the Emperor Nicholas,
has been added to the many attractions at the Royal ranopticon of
'cience aid Art. Amongst these are :—the Lu iiinous and Chromatic
Fountain, throwing Illuminated Water 100 feet high—Panorama and
Dioramic Views or Verona—A splendid Collection of ghromatropes
Heincke's Diving Apparatus, the Subaqueous 1 ight, &c. —Scientific
Lectures and Demonstrations by en anent Professors—and Perfor-
nrinces on the Grand Organ by M. Best, and Distin's Fogel Horn-
Union every evening. Hours of exhibition— mornin ,12to b ; even-
ing, 7to 10, Saturday evenings excepted. Admission, Is. ; schools
and children under 10, half-price. Season admission, one guinea;
life admission, ten guineas.

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

The Leopard, 18, paddle-frigate, Captain George Gif-
fard, has been placed in No. 7 dock at Portsmouth to
refit.

The Salamander, 6, paddle-sloop, Commander Priest,
arrived at Spithead yesterday morning from Malta and
Gibraltar. She left the former station on the 10th, and
the latter on the 19th inst. She reports the Viper, screw
gun-boat, haring left for the Black Sea on the 10th, the
Lynx, screw guu-boat, on the 9th ; and the steam-sloop
Stromboli on the 9th, also for the Black Sea. She ex-
changed numbers with the steam-frigate Valorous on the
20th inst., off Cape St. Vincent.

DEPARTURE OF THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH.
The Queen of the South, with the military detach.
ments already described, left Spithead last evening about
2. quarter past 5 for the seat of war in the Crimea.
Orders were received by the authorities at Portsmouth,
by electric telegraph, on Thursday night, to detain this
vessel until the arrival of the medical officers (16 in num-
ber) who are ordered to the East. In the meantime,-
such a cargo of linen rags, lint, munitions of war, and
packages for friends at the seat of war arrived as would
freight one or more vessels entirely, but a goodly quan-
tity was got on board the Queen of the South, and she
left Portsmouth harbour about 12 yesterday, her troops
crowding tier decks, and being loudly cheered by the
populace on shore.

THE OVERLAND MAILS

We have received, by special express, in antici-
pation of the overland mail, our despatches fiorn
India and China, a telegraphic summary of which
was given in The Sun of yesterday. The dates are:
—Calcutta, September 18 ; Madras, 24 ; Bombay,
28 ; Shangbae, August 26 ; Canton, September
9 ; Hong Kong, 11 • Singapore, 18.
The following is from the suer nary of the Bom-
bay Times :

On the 30th of August, Colonel Cotton marched
from Peshawur for the purpose of destroying some
insurgent villages to the north-westward. The
force consisted of Gordon's Seikhs, a battery of the
Mountain Train, two companies of H.M. 22d, the
2d Company of the Sappers, and 9th N. 1., or about
three thousand in all. The rear was covered
by the 13th Light Cavalry. The village was
taken without opposition, and burnt to the
ground, the trees being afterwards de-troyed and
gardens uprooted. These measures, severe as they
seem, are indispensable to check the marauding of
ferocious borderers who will require many years of
castigation to bring them to order or teach them
forbearance from plunder. The severity is one of
the necessities of our position, stretching as our
territory does along the frontier of a mass of moun-
tains, much too vast for us to occupy or penetrate,
where the people on the one side have been for ages
robbers by circumstances, and where we are the
protectors of their former victims we do not chose
to suffer them to be robbed with impunity.
Some of the usual disturbances in the Nizam's
country have just occurred. A party -of Rohillas,
about 500. strong, took the field and seized posses-
sion of a fort, in which they seemed to propose to
maintain themselves. Brigadier Mayne, with the
right wing of the 2d cavalry, four companies of the
infantry, and a few guns of the 2d company artillery
—about 600 in all—left the cantonments at Au-
rungabad on the evening of the 20th inst., and
arrived at Sailoor, the position of the Rohillas, 40
miles distant, at four o'clock next evening. The
Rohillas refused, on being summoned, to sur-
render, and the Brigadier required to wait to
tiring up his heavy guns, proposing to cannonade
them as soon as these arrived. In the course of the
night the enemy attempting to escape were attacked
and dispersed with great slaughter. Our casualties
consisted of one man killed, and one officer and ten
men wounded, none of them severely. Through-
out India at large profound tranquillity at present
ippears to reign, British Burmah forming no excep-
tion. In Pegu even robberies appear to have ceased,
and the brother of the King of Ava is said to be on
his way to Calcutta at the head of an embassy to
endeavour to induce us to abandon the small ter-
ritory from which the royal family derives its name
—willing to make any concession if this can be ob-
tained. The recent spirit of improvement which
seems to have become infused into Government ap-
pears as if it had awakened fresh enterprise among
the people, and we do not recollect ever to have seen
anything ike the manifestations of energy and self-
reliance amongst the natives at present to be wit-
nessed on all sides of us.
There have been two serious fires at Aden, one on
the 6th of August, and the other on the 9th of Sep-
tember, the particulars of which will have reached
home some weeks before our paper arrives. The
rains of this season have been unusually protracted ;
13.81 inches have fallen in the course of September,
the 14th having been one of the wettest days of
fhe season, and great atmospheric disturbances
have been experienced almost simultaneously all
over India. The monsoon at Bombay has on the
whole been eminently favourable, so much so that
we are beginning to fear that our waterworks may
he forgotten, and we certainly shall not have a
yard of pipe laid near Bombay at all events for
three years to come. The Governor-General and
local governors are at present all at the respective
seats of their authority, to all appearance actively
iccupied in their gubernatorial duties. The pros-
pects of trade are highly favourable ; in tha money
market there is no change, money, for which there
is no demand, being abundant.
A few months back Lord Harris, Governor of
Madras, published an admirable manifesto on the
!,eneral improvement of the country, and this has '
since our last been followed by a second paper
equal excellence in reference to the tortures
supposed to be indulged in in raising the land
revenues of the presidency. Abandoning the hush-
'ng up and mystery-mongering system formerly
in favour, and which the India House seems so
reluctant to relinquish, he comas boldly forward
in the spirit of an English noble resolved to in-
vestigate the matter to the bottom, to expose the
ilauder if it be one, if it be not one to exterminate
the offence. The Western India Irrigation Com-
pany have now had 48,000 shares applied for in
India, or, assuming that no more than ten thou-
sand are required for England, eight thousand
more than the proposed capital, and all this has
happened in six weeks, without the slightest influ-
ence or effort being used. They are now on the
point of applying to Government, and of calling up
their deposits with the strongest reason to feel
confident in the results. The irrigation field first
to be examined is the rich tract lying betwixt the
Nerbudda and Taptee, from the base of the high-
lands towards the sea, along a line of about
forty miles of canal, with a navigable river at
each end. This tract was strongly recommended by
Colonel Grant in 1849, and by Mr. Mackay in
1851. The survey is expected to be completed by
the time the cold weather is over, and the works
to be begun before the commencement of the
rains. As the capital will only bo called up as
required by the contractors, and the canal be made
available as it is cut, there is every reason to hope
that dividends will be coming in on the full
amount paid up within a twelvemonth of the first
call being made. Our spinning and weaving, our
gbnaeoerdnie rueniiufvoseredu, sevenma,li d a picture aller,and zoological
caper manufacturing, our Scinde Railway, and
Indus salt exporting projects are all in progress,
and all promising to flourish, The plan of an eco-
nomic
uyearsnder under
infinitely
moref
a vhoa
us
rna
bo
lwe
auspices than formerly.

City at all events, through dissensions in the rebel
ranks, which have groNs n to such a height, that
those to the east of the city lately rendered their
assistance to the Mandarins, in an attack on the
band to the north ; but their offer was declined.
They are all, however, beginning to feel discouraged
by their long-continued uon-success, and destitu-
tion of supplies. On the east they have been (Us.:
persed, and a leader captured ; in the north they
have effected nothing ; to the west they have been
driven back by the bravos belonging to the 96 vil-
lages who some time ago banded together in self-
defence ; and at the south they are fully occupied
by dissensions among themselves.
In the 30 skirmishes about Canton, the manda-
rins have been victorious in all except four. There
has been none since the 2d inst. The encampment
of the rebels to the north of the city is at Sian-
kiang, about 12 miles from the northern wall ; and
the eastern encampment is about the same distance
front the eastern wall, at San-po-heu. The leader
of the band on the north is said to, be Ho-alak of
Tung-kwan celebrity. The statements as to the
numbers at these encampments vary from several
thousands to several tens of thousands.
Great distress from want of food prevails in the
city among the poor, and some soup kitchens are
being opened by the benevolent to supply congee
at about one-third the usual charge.
A grand consoo of the high officers and gentry of
the city has been held, at which the latter urgently
recommended an appeal to foreigners for assistance.
The Governor-General himself was in favour of the
measure, but was deterred from acting upon it on
his own responsibility through dread of being re-
ported at the capital by a censor, the only dissen-
tient at the consoo, but a man of some standing,
and the same who penned the memorial which led
to Muh-chang-ah's degradation. Meanwhile, how-
ever, a report of the state of affairs and application
for instructions have been forwarded to Pekin.

The province itself, however, is still in a fright-
ful state, and thousands of villagers have joined the
rebel ranks to save themselves from starvation, so
that it is not to be wondered at that the rebels in
the province now number not less than 100,000 ;
and as they live entirely by exactions from the
peaceably disposed, the sum they have already col-
lected must amount to several millions of dollars.
Till within the last week or two, the eastern
portion of the province remained undisturbed ; but
the taking of Cowloong and Chung-chow by bands
of marauders from Hong Kong has been followed
by the capture of Haifung and Lok-fung, in Hwui-
chau.

The extensive conflagration mentioned in. our last
Overland, as having been seen from Cumsingmoon,
was the burning of a large and wealthy town in
Shun-teh named Pih-Kiang, set fire to by the Triads,
because the inhabitants would not quietly accede
to their exactions. Two-thirds of the city is said
to have been destroyed.