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

OVERLAND MAIL

INDIA AND CHINA,

We published on Monday last a telegraphic dispatch
received by way of Trieste, with the Items
of the news brought by the mail, which only;t retehed
London last night. We now subjoin extracts4roin the
India papers, with full details of the intelligent:et-F.
(From the Bombay Times.)
"We mentioned in our last the investment of the fort of
Dharoor, in the Nizam's dominions, taken possession of, and
for a time defended by the Robillas confined in It as pri-
soners. We have since received accounts of its surrender.
The force summoned by Brigadier Beatson, amounting to up-
wards of 2,100 men, with eight pieces of ordnance, having,
all arrived by the 26th of January, operations were com-
menced next day. Though the besieged must havefelt con-
vinced the moment they saw such a force in their neigh-
bourhood, commanded by such an officer as Brigadier
Beatson, that all hope of success was vein, they
determined to hold out till the last. Two bastions,
mounted with heavy guns, and commaniing the position
meant to be taken up in breaching, were first silenced and
their batteries disabled ; the artillery then took up a position
about 400 yards from the nearest wall, and the work of de-
struction began. The parapet was easily knceledAtway, and
in thirteen hours the breach was pronounced practicable,
and was to have been forced on the morning of the 4th.
Some sixty volunteers from each of the cavalry corps having
been called for, such was the spirit that the whole force pre-
sented themselves, each portion entreating to be allowed to
take the lead. Apprehensive of the consequences of further
resistance when the fort was no longer defemible, the be-
sieged announced their readiness to surrender itneondition-
ally, and having laid down their arms at the top, came out
through the breach, the gateways having been built up by
themselves. They numbered in all about 140. There were
three heavy 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 Momioabad, where they wait to
be put under still more severe restraint than before. Briga-
dier Beatson returns to Europe by the steamer of the 3d of
March. It is currently reported that a large slice of the
izen's dominions is about to be ceded to us invorapeceation
for the money due (600,0001.) by the ruler to ale- British
Government, the interest of which forms so heavy a charge
on his revenues - the principal of which he is never likely
to pay in cash. Under the present Governor-General there
is every reason to believe that the arrangement will he
an equitable and liberal one—praise that but few of eur
arrangements for extension of territory can claim. The
visit of the Governor-General to Peshawar is said to be

likely to exercise a highly beneficial influence on the.settle-
ment of the frontier question. On the 22d of January the
Ist Punjaub Irregular Cavalry (Daly's) left Peshawur for
Kohat; they are said to have marched through the Khyber
Pass without firearms, under the escort of a ;mountain chief.
They reached Muntee the day they started, and Kohat the
day following, right through the defile, and'over the moun-
tain ridge at one stretch. They encountered no molesta-
tion or obstruction in their way. The 2d Punjaub Cavalry
are at present on their way from the Yoosoofzaie country to
Burnie°. The walls and works round Lahore are all being dis-
mantled, with the view to the opening up,. ventilating, and
cleaning of the city. The expenses of these municipal im-
provements are met by the levying of a petty custom, such
as' is common at home, on articles entering into the town
for sale; and so highly are the improvements ap-
preciated, and so lightly is the tax felt, that other
large towns within the Punjaub have applied for the
extension of the system to them. Funds sufficient both
f r police and conservancy purposes are expected to be raised
in this fashion, without taxing the resources of the State.
The civil officers throughout the country have been in-
structed to forward, before the Ist of March, to the Board
of Administration, a detailed report on the state and pros-
pects of the various departments under their charge, as the
Governor-General, it is said, purposes to prepare for the
Court of Directors a general report of the condition of the
country; a more interesting or valuable document can
hardly be imagined. The Governor-Gsneral left Rawul
Pinddce, on his way to Peshawur, on the 3Qth, for Kalabagh,
on the Indus, where the river forces its way through a tre-
mendous chasm in the Salt Range. Salt is excavated on an
immense scale, and there are some scores 'of alum manufac-
tories close at hand. Ia this neighbourhood the geological
surveys, of which Dr. A. Fleming is the head, are at present
employed—statistical and scientific inquiry now beginning
to have the important place assigned to it; which it occupies
throughout the rest of the world. his Lordship is said to
be desirous of meeting the savans within' the field of their
labours, and of inspecting the tremendous rapids of the Indus,
along with the officers of the Indian navy appointed to meet
him at Kalabagh.
A new cantonment for troops is proposedto be established in
the Baree Dooab : a committee has been appointed to look
out for a site, and the most eligible at present appears to be
considered near the old fort of Rungul Mungul. Though
the British Government have been in virtual occupation of
Lahore for five years, and in actual possession of it for two,
there having been from 1,200 to 2,000 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 by Sir
H. 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-room of
her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons has of late been usually
made 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 fur their own use. The Punjaub
promises to afford us something like en Illustration of what
India might h .ve been compared to what it now is, had its des,
tinies all along been guided by such hands as those inwhich they
at present rest. The area of our territories would probably
have been one-half its present extent ; the income derived
from them ten times, the benefit conferred on them 10,000
times, what it now is. So soon as tte arrangements for the
preservation of order and maintenance of the public peace
were made, including amongst them the disarming of the
people, and the attent on to tee administra ion of the Go-
vernment and man geenent of public affairs immediately de-
manded had been bestbwed, the physical capabilities of the
country for improvement were inqu red into. The Baree
D,oab canal, with its branches, now in progress of censtruc-
tion, extends over a length of 450 miles; it will water an
area of above half a million of acres now barren, and supply
occupation and support to probably 2,000,000
people. It
will cost at first half a million sterling, with a charge of
2 031. a year •or maintenance, yielding
income of 120,0001., or 24 per cent., with yearly a direct
- probably twice as
much in indirect returns. The moment this project was
started, and plans arranged for carrying it out intrusted to
the Executive, 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 universality of brooding
apathy and ignorance among the Seikha ; that in the Lahore
division in particular a large number of children are
at all times being instructed, and a strong desire fur infor-
mation prevailing among them, of which it was most impor-
tant to take advantage. In the Lahore division there were
found to be 1,385 schools, with a gross attendance of 11,500
pupils, or, on an average, about eight to each.' In the city
itself there are 28,692 houses, and 143 schools, with an at-
tendance of 2,243 pupils; of these, .16 are devoted to the in-
struction of Mahomedan
girls, and there are no fewer than
128 of these taught to read the Korae_the teachers are
women. At Kussor and its neighbourhood there are 102
schools, with 841 pupils. In 'Umritsie there are 15,206
houses, 40 schools, and 861 pupils. The population of the
Lahore district amounts to about 2,500,000 and about one-
third of a million (388,271) of both sexes are believed to
be of an age fit for school; of these, le
4135 are males, of
whom 11,5000, or 6 per cent., are already at school—about
2 per cent. more receive private instruction—say 8 per
cent. in all; a state of matters brought to pass-by the
Seikhs themselves, and eminently creditable to those we
have been accustomed to call barbarians, but still leaving
ample room for the labours of the schoolmaster. We
could neither give with such minuteness nor accuracy the
statements of education or population in Bombay, after an
occupation of two centuries, as the Lahore
board can give in
relation to the districts around them, after a possession of
less than three years. The magnitude, wealth, intelligence,
and position of the city, pointed to Umritsir as one of the
most fitting places for the commencement of the Government
scheme of instruction. Mr. Montgomerie• the commissioner
(a man indefatigable in his exertions for the cause of native
improvement, to whom the whole was intrusted), selected
Mr. Saunders, and the choice appears to have been most ju-
dicious for the carrying out of the scheme. SOO/. was allowed
at the outset, by Government, for the erection of a school-
house, and 5011. a year for the maintenance of the schools.
The teachers were all to be natives of the Punjaub—
the head master to receive 190/., the first assistant to receive
701., stipends which, when the cheapness of living is consi-
dered, may be deemed most liberal ; both these were to
teach English as well as other branches. Persian, Oordoo,
Hindee, and Sanacrit masters were alto to be employed, at
from 301. to 9f/. a year. Similar arrangements, on a scale
proportioned to their wants, will be masse in other cities so
soon as the Umritsir scheme is at work. Lord Dalhousie
seems to consider the vicinage of the schoolmaster quite as
important at times as that of the Commander-in-Chief, by
whose side Lord Ellenborough insisted the Governor-General
ought to be.
A sharp shock of earthquake was felt at Lahore on the
31st ult., a previous one of lesser moment having been ex-
perienced on the 17th, both here and at Mooltan. Another
seems to have been felt at the latter place on the 9th, on the
same day that an earthquake occurred at and around Cal-
cutta. A shock much more violent than any of these was
experienced at Chittagong, on the 7th. A boat was destroyed
by fire on the Sutlej, about the 25th, in which Major Clarke
and Captain Sorrell, of her Majesty's 14th Dragoons, were
descending the river ; property. to the value of 1,8001.,
chiefly gifts for parties at home, is said to have been lost in
the flames, and a woman and her child were burnt to des b.
The weather along the north-west frontier continued cold,
wet, and disagreeable, with much snow and hail at the more
elevated stations. The falls of snow throughout the pro-
vince of Kumaoon between the I(th and 20th are described
to have been tornadoes,—at Nainee Tal it being three feet,
and at Almorah one foot thick. Around Sheila and all over
the Dhera Dhoon the country was covered; even at Feroze-
pore the free was very severe, the ground remaining white
till past nine' 'clock.
The Commander-in-Chief, Sir W. Gomm, was at Agra on
the Bth. The boy Very, who murdered the poor man Knox
in the icehouse, was hanged at Calcutta on the 30th ult.
Sir H. Pottinger. and Sir G. Berkeley are at Madras; Lord
Falkland and Sir John Grey are at the Presidency. The
latter quits shortly for the Mahabuleshwar where he
takes up his abode till the rains, when he will proceed to
Poona, and remsin there until November; the withdrawal of
the Staff following on his absence leaves a large blank in our
society. Cholera continues to prevail at Bombay, The em-
bankment at Sion Marsh, the only part of the works of the
Bombay Railway yet in progress, is proceeding with spirit
and rapidity. The first piece of ground destined for the
Bengal Railway line was made over to the railway esta-
blishment on Saturday, the 25th of January. For the past
week the weather has been cloudy, the wind southerly, the
tides unusually high, and barometer low—appearances
which usually indicate the prevalence of a hurricane within
some 600 miles of us. A serious robbery to the extent of
nearly 10,0001. has been committed on the Oriental Bank.
Notes to this amount had been put away the previous
evening, and the safe containing them put into the strong
room in which it was usually kept, both, as was averred,
lockedup by thenative cash-keepers. Next morning the locks
were found open, and the money gone; as they bad sustained