Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1840-04-10

preceding their arms, had already crossed
the Himalaya SHOWS, and were stirring
up the seeds of subdued but unextinguish-
ed hostility in the Birman Empire, among
the Ncpaulcse mountainecrs, and the dis
conted raahs of Hindostan.
There is but one road by which any
hostile army ever has, or ever can, APP
proach India from the Northward. Alex
ander the Great, Timour, Gengis Khan,
Nadir-Sllah, have all penetrated Hindo-
stan by the same route. That road has,
for three thousand years, been the beaten
and wcll-known track by which the mcr-
camille communication has been kept up
between the plains of the Gauges and the
steppes of Upper Asia. Hcrat stands at
the head Of this deGlc. Its population,
which amounts to one hundred thousand
souls, and wealth which renders it by
far the most important city in the heart of
Asia, have been entirely formed of the
caravan trade, which, from time immemo-
rial, has passed through its walls, going
and returning from Persia to Hindostan.
When Napoleon, in injunction with the
Emperor Paul, projected the invasion of
our Indian possessions by a joint army of
French infantry and Russian Cossacks,
the route marked out was Astrakan, As
trabad, Hcrat, Candahar, the Bolan pass,
and the Indus, to Delhi. There never
can be any other road overland to India;
for the East of it, inaccessible snowy
ranges of mountains preclude the possible
ity of an army getting through; while to
the West, parched and impossible deserts
afford obstacles still more formidable,
which the returning soldiers of Alexander
overcamc onl y with the loss of half their
numbers. 1t is quite clear, therefore,
that Herat is the vital point of commune
cation between Russia and Hindostan;
and that whoever is in possession of it,
either actually or by the Intervention Off
subsidiary or allied force, need never dis
quiet himself about apprehensions that an
enemy will penetrate through the long
and difficult defilc which lead in its rear to
Hindostan.
Since our empire in India had waxcd
so powerful as to attract the envy of the
Asiatic tramOntane nation, it became,
therefore, Il matter Of necessity to main
tain our influence among the nations who
held the keys of this pass. Aflghanstan
was to India what Piedmont has long been
to Italy; even second Hannibal or Ma
polcon might be stopped in its long noun
tain passes and interminablc barren hills.
If, indeed, the politics of India could be
confined only to its native powers, it might
be wise to consider the Indus and the Hi
malaga as our frontier, and to disregard
entirely thc.distant hostility or complica-
ted diplomacy of the Northern Asiatic
states. But as long as India, like Italy,
possesses the fatal gift of beauty; as long
as its harvests are coveted by Northern
sterility, and its riches by barbarian pow
erty, so long must the ruler of the land
preserve with jealous care the entrance
into ito its bosom, and sit with frowning
majesty at the entrance of the pass by
which "thc blue-eyed myriads of the Bal
tic coast" may find a way into its tabled
plains. x NJ
In military point ofvicw, the cxpcdi-
ton to Affghanistan is one of the most
memorable events in modern time. For
the first time since the days of Alexander
the Great, a civilized army has penetra-
ted the mighty barriers Of deserts and
mountains which separate Persia from
Hindostan; and the prodigy has been ex-
hibited to an astonishcd world of remote
island in the European seas pushing for
ward its mighty arms into the heart of
Asia, and carrying its victorious standards
into the strong-hoIds of Mahomctan faith
and the cradle of the Mogul Empire
Neither the intricate streams of the Pun
jab, nor the rapid flow of the Indus, nor
the waterless mountains of Aflghanstan,
nor the far-famcd bastions of Ghuznce.
have been able to arrest our course. For
the first time in the history of the world,
the tide of conquest has flowed up from,
Hindostan into Central asia; the Eu-
ropean race has asserted its wonted supc-
riOrity over the Asiatic; reversing the
march of Timour and Alexander, the sable
battaions of the Gauges have appeared
as conquerors on the frontiers of Persia,
and on the confines of the steppcs of Sam
arcand. SO marvellous and unprecedent-
ed an event is indeed fitted to awaken the
contemplation of every thoughtful mind.
Ispeaks volumes as to the mighty step
made by the human race in the last five
hundred years, and indicates the vast
agency and uhbounded effects of that free
spirit, of which Britain is the centre,
which has thus, for season at least, in
verified the heretofore order of nature.
made the natives of Hindostan, appear as
victors in the country of Gengis Khan,
and brought the standards of civilized