The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

INDIA AND CHINA.

By the arrival of the Overland Mail ice have re-
ceived our private correspondence and files of
papers from Calcutta to the 17th of July ; Bombay,
July 29 ; and Hong Kong, July 10.

" BOMBAY, JULY 29.
" Since I last wrote no intelligence has reached
us of the proceedings of the Persians and Heratees,
if I except a short and summary statement that
appears in the Lahore Chronicle. The information
thus conveyed, which is, if it be correct, of consi-
derable importance, is to the effect that Esa Khan,
whose opposition to the Persians, both in the field
and subsequently in the city, I have before re-
corded, has succeeded in expelling the enemy from
Herat ; and further, that having thus rid himself
of the incubus of a hostile army, he took thought
of his situation, and, deeming the relief _his party
was experiencing to be in all likelihood bu'l, 7., tem-
porary respite, he despatched pressing messages to
Dost Mahomed at Candahar, offering to place the
city in his hands if he would bring or rend an
armed force sufficient to occupy and defend it.
This is not the first time I have been called on to
mention rumours of the existence of negotiations
between the native (as opposed to the Persian)
party in Herat and the rulers in Affghanistan ;
and it is certainly not unreasonable to suppose that,
with a powerful enemy pressing them on the west,
Esa Khan and his friends would turn for assistance
to their kindred Affghans, even though the price
of that assistance were the establishment in their
city of the power and influence of the Barukzye
family. Unwilling to admit this demand, and at
the same time unable, however desirous, to assist
the Heratees, Dost Mahomed has referred, it is
said, the whole matter to the British authorities at
Peshawur, requesting their advice in his extreme
need and perplexity. Among the natives on the
North-West Frontier the conflicting and often
contradictory rumours of the events that aro
taking place beyond the etupendous heights and
dark passes of the Suleiman Mountains have been
improved upon and amplified by timidity, igno-
rance, and credulity. The wild and dreaded hill
tribes are to rise in concert and pour down in over-
whelming force upon the garrison of Peshawur.
In anticipation of the coming peril, the wives and
daughters of the English are to be sent across the
Indus. The British are to make a general advance
upon Cabul. Dost Mahomed is to abdicate, and
retire into private life at an English hill station,
and so forth. We may smile at these silly fancies,
and think them scarcely worthy of being recorded,
but they, at any rate, prove the existence of a
feverish interest in the affairs of Affghanistan, and
are perhaps illustrativ*—some of them at least—
of the childish, unreasoning character, of the
native mind.

" It is satisfactory to state that the cholera,
which at the date of my last had attained to fear-
ful proportions in some of the cities of the North-
West Provinces, is now rapidly disappearing under
more favourable atmospherical conditions.
"At Agra, as well as elsewhere, the account of
sickness is decreasing. Among other deaths that
of Lieutenant Chauncey, of the Madras army, is
much regretted. This active young officer held the
appointment of officiating superintendent of elec-
tric telegraphs throughout India, and in this capa-
city was very generally known and esteemed, not
merely in his own presidency but also in Bombay
and Bengal.