The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-17 00:00:00

HERAT.

The following Cabul letter, which we extract
from the Delhi Gazette, will be read with interest.
All the Indian papers now admit the fall of the
place.
Cabul, Nov. 28.—Two Cossids from the sacred Mu-
sbid came to Cabul, and in confidence mentioned that on
the day when they left the sacred Mushid, they met on
the road to Herat a party consisting of a thousand horse-
men who were escorting Esa Khan, the late chief of
Herat, to the p'resence of the King of Persia at Tehe-
ran. When they arrived at Herat, they say that all
the gates of Herat were open ; they went into the city
and remained there three days. They heard from the
inhabitants that Esa Khan had for a long time been
wishing to secure his personal safety, if he should
evacuate the fort. The commander of the Persian forces
always replied to Esa Khan, that without the order of th•
king be could not guarantee his life. A firman at length
came from the king ; and in compliance with the orders
received, quarter was granted and an assurance of
honourable treatment given. Esa Khan surrendered
the fortress and presented himself at the Darbar of the
Prince of Persia, who conferred on him a handsome
and valuable dress of honour and several thousand
golden boodkies. Note that each boodkie, like Meorars,
is of small intrinsic value, probably not exceeding six
rupees. The Prince then providing him with a honour-
able escort of one thousand sowers, sent him to the
King of Persia, who was at Teheran. The children
and family of E-ta Man remain in the fort of Herat ;
and under orders conveyed in a royal firman, they are
residing in the house of the son of Yar Mahomed Khan.

BRIGADIER CHAMBERLAIN'S EXPEDI-
TION TOWARDS CA.BUIs.
In the Bengal Ilurkaru we read :
We mentioned on Thursday that we had authentic
information to the effect that a part of the so-called
Meernnzaie force was actually on its way to Cebu',
under command of Brigadier Neville Chamberlain, and
that according to latest advices, it, was within four days'vre
march of the capital of the Ameer Post MahoTed
. v
briefly alluded to the secresy with which thtisolmann
ournals,portant
ot but
military measure bad been carried out
express our surprise that none of the up-countrybu
j
even the one nearest the frontier, should have received
or furnished any information on this highly interesting
move, whether the detach.
We are not in a positiontosay
ment of Brigadier Chamberlain, whose distinguished ser-
vices in Affghanistan, and intimate acquaintance with
the country and its people, peculiarly fit him for the
post he has been so wisely selected to fill, is intended
for service, or as our escort under whose wing the ruler
of Cebu' is to hold an interview with Sir John Law-
rence ; but whatever may be the object, there is no doubt
that the route selected has been a moat judicious one.
It completely turns the Afreedees of the Khiber, whose
perin'sAion to " pass on" it might have been necessary
to purchase. The expedition will make us acquainted
with a road years ago pronounced the best to Cabul by
the sagacity of Major Coke, and the arrangements for
its despatch could be, and were apparently, made in that
retired nook at Kobat, without exciting the observation
which they must have attracted at Peshawur. There-
fore, the exact force, the strength of which we do not
know, is accompanied by Captain Sladen's Punjaub bat-
tery, with the view, no doubt, of testing the practicability
of the route for guns.
It is generally believed in the Punjaub, and there
seem strong grounds for thinking, that an army will
be formed at Peshawur within the next three months,
and that the regiments ostensibly on their march
to reliev e the corps at that station will form the
nucleus of the force. The only indication to the con
trary we can find in our letters is that her Ma-
jesty's 61st Foot are still under orders to march, about
this date, for Ferozepore. Her Majesty's 27th Regi-
ment ought to be close to Nowshera by this time, having
marched out of Sealkote on the 15th November, while
' Captain Rothney's Sikh Regiment are approaching the
same point, though their names never appeared iu orders.

Eve a the services of the Hill Rangers o o 044 ) "
who were considered a fixture at Dhurreirol6;)larrii,
call, -1 into requisition; they wou:d be Alosi)
by t is had not their march been cqhsid-cr..
by sickness. ' •
Li n Cabul correspondence of lie Otlatkiiikyik,
dated ilov. 23, we read of some '-iit-t;p934114
glared to the force :
Rumour says that the Commissioners agl3rividierQ -
Chamberlain, Anderson, and Leslie have leit-Koharsad
reached the Kooeurn, and that on one occasion some
shots were fired a fort on the said Sahibs, which
led to the con ~is hen and there inflicting seta;
mary punishment. Having realised from the people the
revenue due by them, it was made over to llslabomed
Hossein, the servant o: Mahommed Azzim Khan, the
Nazim or Deputy Commissioner of the district on the
part of the Ameer Dost Mahomed Khan. The servante
of the Dost entertained the said Sahibs just as they
ought to have done. The commissioner with the other
Sahibs, and a small party of troop-,, went from the halt-
ing ground at "Chuhar Mu' zit" to 13:4 aghien. After
the commissioner has v,sited Kohat and Kooram, he will
return to Peshawnr. Toe advance tents of Dost Maho-
med have been sent outside of the town of Cabul, on the
road to Jellalabad, end (as it has before been said) it is
probable, or rather nearly certain, that there will be a
meeting between D Jat Mahomed and 'be Chief Commis-
stoner, at which the comtnissioner of Peshawur will also
be present. It is said that Major Nicolsoc, the deputy-
commissioper of Bunnoo, has issued stringent orders to
the sellers of grain regarding the disposal of their stores,
Afrotmheawrng
hiieheuitchisgeseudephoeswede, tthhaet
ppereircehsawveillhebeeecheaper.
delight-
ed, and they arc inclined to bless the justice and bene-
volence of the noble Sahibs. Amidst other reports, it is
generally asserted here that four Sahibs and one Moon
&lee will be sent to arrange the affairs of Kohan, Bok-
ti arm, and Khoorgunj.
The Bombay Telegraph publishes a letter (with-
out date) from an officer with the force under Bri-
gadier Chamberlain, who writes :
We ate now within 50 miles of Cabal, and for the
present ten day; our route has led us through a countr
miserably uninteresting; roads bad in the extreme, to
accomplish a march of 10 miles requiring seven hours.
Sir J. Lawrence is now at Kohat—he possibly will have
had an interview with Dost Mahomed ere this can reach
you. We are as supremely ignorant as ever as to whi-
ther we are bound ; but one thing is certain, that before
many days we shall feel ourselves called upon to chas-
tise the " Tyomosht" Affzbans, who are troublesome.
The whole force is remarkably healthy.

The following important indications are found in
an article published by the Friend of India of Dec.
4, with the interrogative heading " Can we hold
Affghanistay. ?"
Herat has fallen. Sir John Lawrence is to meet Dust
Mabommed in Khyber. Ten thousand men have been
demanded from Bengal to join the Persian expedition.
We are drifting fast into the shoreless sea of Central
Asian politics. The cycle has come round once more.
We are embarked for the second time in an undertak-
ing from which we must not again retreat without the
certainty of permanent success. Of that undertaking the
invasion of Persia is but one important section. Are the
gates of India to be English or Russian Is the Tartar
cradle to be ruled from London or St. Petersburg
That is the question which, under petty disguises, seems
to be presented to the Government of India. It is too
often argued that the struggle With Russia will he fought
out in Europe. This is the doctrine the Bombay Times
never wearies of expounding. Be the policy sound or
unsound, we submit that the quarrel will be fought nut
here. Its unsoundness, however, is open to grave ques-
tion. By figi,t ng in leis, it is true, we may protract the
contest. But we repeat the policy which has for the hour
exhausted European Rus.ia. We compel the Czar to
fight at a distance from his resources, to urge his
troops over half a world of steppe, to exhaust
in locomotion the strength scarcely adequate to the
day of battle. An army lost in Finland may be replaced.
An army lost in the Solirnan is the loss of a force, every
unit of which is the result of the expenditure of a dozen
lives. Russia has Rost. upon the Caspian. She may
have boats upon the Jaxartes. But her true strength is
thousands of miles away, and liable to all the incidents
of tnat length of land carriage. She mutt fight in a
country secretly hostile, and hampered by allies whose
predilection is for the stronger side. We, on the con-
trary, enter on the struggle supported by the unimpaired
strength of the military monarchy of India. We have
a great acclimated army. We have no press impatient
of a wise delay, no bourgeoisie to fling aside the fruits of
victory in its ignorant horror of taxation. Above all,
we have no alliances. There is no Louis Napoleon in
Asia to throw down his warder as the warriors warm to
the strife. The contest can be fought out without the
interference inseparable from alliances, or the vacillation
inherent in our constitutional scheme. We believe,
therefthe, that the conflict, if the time has arrived, ought
to be transferred to Asia.

The second cloud has a darker lining. The popular
instinct, often, more accurate than the calculations of
stat,smen, already reasons thus. If we are really em-
barked in this great strife the occupation of Afghanistan
sooner or later is a necessity. To such a prospeot there
was, till 1850, an almost insuperable aversion. The
Cabul war, with its fearful catastrophe, was too vividly
remembered. The horror excited by that event bad
dimmed even our perception of facts. Afghanistan was
regarded as the Anglo-Indian Circassia. The absolute
success of Pollock's expedition was, as it were, ignored.
Afghanistan was held to be the limit set by nature her-
self to the advance of the Anglo-Saxon. The feeling which
produced these views has not yet disappeared. The
Cabul catastrophe, it is true, has became the Cabul
blunder. Politicians acknowledge that with the annexa•
tion of the Punjaub the main difficulty has disappeared.
Soldiers allow that the Valley .of the Indus is now a
safe base of operations, that Cabul is but five days'
march from our strongest camp. The public has lost
its dread of the mountain clans. It appreciates the
lesson taught by Sir John Lawrence, and knows that
like other wild beasts they can be tamed by hunger and
the occasional application of the whip. Yet in spite of
all this there is an undefined feeling that Affghanistan
would be a dangerous and expensive possession. Why
The population is not braver than that of the Huzara.
It is scarcely In numerous as that of Ouda. It is not
so fanatic as that of Malabar. There is no natural diffi-
culty in Afghanistan which does not equally exist in
Kohat. There is no want of experience on our side.
There are twenty officers now on the frontier who, it
ordered to hold Afghanistan, would know thoroughly
what to say, and how to act, how to conciliate the chiefs,
and how to employ a balf-starving population. The mere
danger indeed scarcely deserves discussion.
But at what expense would the occupation be main-
tain-d I The injury to the revenue is at least clear
We venture with profound subtmesien to question even
that assertion. Is it cheaper to guard the plain against
the mountain, or the mountain against the plain 1 We
must do one or the other. If not, if Russia is not ad-
vancing, if there is no danger approaching, we have no
business beyond the range or in Persia. We are sending
a costly expedition to hunt a will-o'-the-wisp ; but if, as
we believe and as our Rations prove, there is real danger,
the cheapest method of defence is to garrison the natural
fortress. It would be obesp even if we turned the
Afghans into our most faithful subjects by formally
exempting them from all taxation. Half the army now
coiled up in the Punjaub would tarn Afghanistan into
an impregnable fortress. Every rook and mountain,
now a terror, would then be a defence. Every Khan of
the steppe, now half inclined to join the invader and
share the spoils, would take heart to continue a contest
of which we reap the fruit without the coat. With the
fortress in our hands, and its approaches always exposed
to a flank attack from Bushire, the Peninsula would be
absolutely safe. That quietude is not, even in the point
of view assumed by financial officers, a mean advantage.

Let us net be misunderstood. We advocate no insane
plunge into the passes, without a reason or a danger.
We simply point to facts which, if the danger arrives,
are necessary to a calm judgment on the appropriate
remedy.

THE PERSIAN GULF.
The Scindion says :—"A correspondent has kindly
placed at our disposal the folloWing more recent intelli-
gence from the Persian Gulf, which will be found highly
interesting under the present aspect of affairs. The Bri-
tish Agent at Bushire has been ordered away from that
place, as well as all Christian residents, Armenians and
others, who might be supposed to be favourable to Bri-
tish interests. A proolamation was issued by the
Governor of tue provinoe,directing its subjects to remove
into the interior, as the Shah was determined to main.
tain the integrity of the empire, and to do battle with
the British. Most of the inhabitants have accordingly
moved out of the vicinity of the expected battle-field.
Troops are being rapidly collected about Bushire, about
40,000 soldiers of all arms baying been moved towards
uuesesnmt at
linyl e officerssh ofrldo from
h i
gaßhn
uds
hopesi a
ievenre ho
afs b Russianee preventingn f troopsorti
fit
uefortified
ngonth6rshaot Bushire,
and
Ba are said
ti
sh from
forma r me
true
cptoi
rri portion o
an olfant hdei
Persian
force
tnsetilwq
islandthey consequently point.ocuo
athn adt
with 80 guns."

read in the Bombay Telegroph of Dec. 17 :
" From native boats which have arrived at Burrachee,
we learn that the expedition had reached Bassadore in
safety ; and it is just possible that our first despatches
from the general commanding will contain an ace cunt of
the bombardment of Bushiro. It is also stated by th•
commanders of native craft that defensive works are
being extensively planned and vigorously executed all
along the Persian coast, but particularly at Busbire and
a small island in front of it, named Ilailalay, on which
a fort has been constructed, and which is said to be well
manned with guns and men. The strength of the Persian
force prepared to, resist us is estimated at 100,000 men,
which will be increased on the commencement of hostili-
ties by the addition of several Russian regiments, which
are now encamped near Tabreez, and are expecting orders
to move towards B u.shire."

BEXLEY.—THE SCCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRIS-
TIANITT AMONG THE JEws.—The Rev. Thomas Hard-
ing, vicar of this usris h, preached the usual annual ser-
mon on new year's 'morning, on behalf of the above
society, when a liberal .collection was made. We under-
stand it is very probable' that the sermon will be printed,
as it was of a peculiarly .interesting character, both for
its Biblical research awl classification, as well as its
reference to the signs of the times.
THE Loss OF THE POINT OF AIR LIFE-BOAT.—LIVEZ-
FOOL, THIIRSDAY.—The subscription-list in aid of the
widows and orphans of the unfortunate men who were
drowned in the Point of Air life-boat while going to
the rescue of the crew of a. shipwrecked brigantine off
the Welsh coast, continues to till very fast, and up to
last evening upwards of 2,8501. had been subscribed in
Liverpool, inclusive of 500/_ from the dock committee,
1501. collected on 'Change by Mr. Daniel C. Buchanan,
and 1001., the contribution of the Liverpool Shipwreck
and Bumane Society.