The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-08 00:00:00

against the liberties of these independent States.
But if the Dukes are successful, can Piedmont stand
quietly by and see the territories again subjugated
which have sought her aid? Then, which course
will the Man of Mystery take ? Will he, disap-
pointed in his PLoN-PLoN scheme, bid Sardinia be
quiet, at the peril of allowing Austria to seize
Lombardy again ? And what will England and
Europe do ? The scope for possibilities is wide,
indeed ! We only hope that either the Dukes
will not dare to become bloodsheding pre-
tenders, or that, if they do, they. will be
defeated—we may add, captured and executed.
They will deserve it !

But the south of Italy is beginning to ferment.
A journal, printed at a press which all the efforts
of the innumerable police and spies have yet failed
to discover, tells the Neapolitans what is done for
Italian liberty north of the Tiber, and what is
said for it in England. The whole country is
described as agitated and excited, troops are
marching to the frontiers. The name of
GARIBALDI is in every mouth ; and some
violent commotion is every day expected ;
the Swiss, at least, are no longer a terror, and it is
by no means certain that all the native troops can
be trusted to fire on the people. The Constitution
of 1848 is still the unrepealed law of the land,
though BOMBA, like our STUARTS, contrived to
govern long without his Parliament. The KING and
Court are making every effort_to meet the dangers
to them, so far as military measures can do it ; but
there seems to be a general hope and belief that the
popular feeling will be so universal and so-strong as
to carry ere long all before it. If so, the POPE and
the DUKES must be quick. Should Naples rise,
nothing can stem the tide of freedom which will
flow over Italy. The POPE will be helpless; he
will be reduced, or rather, we should say, elevated
to the Bishopric of Paris pure et simple, and all
Italy will, at least, breathe from Sicily to the Alps.

Elsewhere in our columns of this evening we give
the Report—not merely the gist, but the whole of
the Report—recently furnished to the directors of
the Oriental Inland Steam Company by Mr.
BOURNE, the Company's Engineer. Although
upon a careful examination of that Report, it will
be found that, comparatively speaking, little has
yet been actually done there, beyond the successful
accomplishment of a series of very energetic experi-
ments ; the facts and the reasonings here blent
together by Mr. BOURNE are, to our thinking,
replete with encouragement. It is impossible not
to recognise at once that from the outset of the un-
dertaking every one out there, under the orders of
the chief engineer, certainly worked vigorously, and,
as the sailors say, with a will. Mr. BOURNE him-
self, in truth, is obviously, and with good reason,
not a little proud of this conspicuous display of
well-organised activity, resolution, and prompti-
tude. " Never before," he takes occasion to
remark in the earlier part of his Report
to the Directors—" Never before has there
been such vigour manifested in India in getting
vessels completed. In Kurrachee, to lay the ways
and launch a river steamer after she has been
rivetted together and completed, has usually been
a business of three months. With us the operation
did not occupy a period of three days. When the
steamer was launched, instead of consuming a day
in jollification, as is usual on such occasions, we
commenced that very moment to transfer the
launching ways to the passenger barge; and by
working all night, we were able to launch the pas-
senger barge the day after the steamer. To pre-
pare the ways for another of the barges, and to
place her safely in the water, occupied a period of
only four hours. The same barge was rivetted,
caulked, painted, and made ready for launching in
a period of five days. Never have I seen men work
in any country with the same energy and enthu-
siasm that has been displayed by your men at Kur-
rachee." And as if this were not enough to bring
vividly before the directors what had actually
been accomplished in so short a time,
under his management, with a view to the imme-
diate carrying out of the designs of Inland Steam
Navigation in Hindostan Mr. BOURNE then
goes on at once to communicate what has actually
been done since the commencement of the past
twelvemonth. " Since the beginning of the year,"
he writes, " You have had your vessels and ma-
chinery landed, workshops erected, with lathes,
punching presses, and other suitable tools driven
by a steam engine—you have had houses built for
the reception of the workmen, and storehouses for
the reception of the various articles sent out—you
have had your vessels put together, launched,
and set to work, and you have me back here
again in England to communicate this informa-
tion." After which epitome of the achievements
accomplished out there already, by the Company's
agents and workmen, it is no wonder that
Mr. BOURNE, who has had the opportunity
of carrying everything out, so far, in his capacity
as the company's engineer, should add with undis-
guised exultation, " I think it must be admitted
ttaat we have not let the grass grow under our feet."
Yet—all this said and done, or rather done and
said—the prospects of the company brighten from
the light thrown upon them by this report, not so
much by reason of what has been actually effected
or realised, as because simply of the eminently
sound and substantial reasons there demonstrating
as clearly as anything can well be demonstrated
upon paper, the possibility of achieving the com-
pany's grand project for establishing a regular
system of Oriental Inland Steam Navigation.

It must be recollected that as yet the Company's
servants, their agents, and workmen have been toil-
ing out there under one or two great and manifest
disadvantages. Their steam trains—their little steam
boats and attendant barges fitted out for the con-
veniense and conveyance of goods and passengers
—are designed for what is, in fact, to be their only
work, viz., inland, or, in other words, river navi-
gation. Yet they have, in the first instance, to
arrive at the Indus, somehow or other, from the
grand starting point of all—the harbour of Kur-
rachee! Originally, in fact, their vessels are
landed and put together at the Point of Manora—
about five miles from, and situated at the remote
side of, the harbour of Kurrachee ! Obviously,
therefore, they are reduced to the necessity, at the
very beginning of the enterprise, to the imperative
and unwelcome necessity of " proceeding along the
coast a few miles" in order to get round
to the port of Gisree, which (at a distance
of about four miles from the harbour of Kurrachee)
constitutes the terminus of the Indus navigation.
The reason for this necessity, at the outset, Mr.
BOURNE clearly enough explains :—" Heavily laden
ships from England cannot enter the Gisree
mouth of the Indus, but must be unloaded in Kur-
rachee harbour "—and therefore "it was," he re-
minds the directors, " a !natter of consideration
ith the board whether it would be the best course
to send the pieces of the barges in country boats to
Gisree. The latter course was the one that was
judged best, and our experience confirms the accu-
racy of the decision. It must have been a most
tedious and expensive operation to take the barges
in pieces to Gisree, whereas we found that, except
in the rough season, they could be towed round
without difficulty." And in this manner, in fact,