Aurnoven the murder of the British Resident at Cabul is an event which reflects no discredit on our arms, it yet affords a useful light as to the condition of affairs in Central Asia, and, taken in conjunction with the recent Russian defeat by the Tureomans, shows how dangerous has been the game Intely attempted by that power. Indeed, the hints that have been recently thrown out by the Russian Press, as to the advisability of an understanding being come to with England, seem to point to the couviction prevalent amongst the Russians themselves that in intermeddling with the Mohammedan fanatics in Central Asia, they have unconsciously aroused power which they have not the force or means of controlling, and that their treacherous conduct with regard to the late Ameer is likely to revert on their own heads. Most thinking men who have made themselves evgnisaut with the position of affairs in Central Asia, have, for years, seen plainly that should Great Britain at avy time have taken advantage of the arising spirit of Mobammedanism in Central Asia and directed the attacks of the fanatics against Russia, she might at small expense to herself have effectually driven Russia out of Central Asia. Bat while seeing clearly this state of matters, British statesmen were well aware of the evil consequences of such a course. The driving of the Russians out of Asia could only be done at the expense of a general massacre, and from such a step British statesmen and British people recviled with horror, Past history relates but tuo plainly the danger of exciting the spirit of Islam. The wave which was sufficiently powerful to drive back the Slavonian advance might not improbably recoil on pacified India, and we have but too strong evidence of the probable result in the incidents of the late Mutiny. But if British statesmen were too well aware of the probable results of organising a Jehad in Central Asia, those trusted with the care of Russian interests in Turkestan did not feel themselves bound by any mere scruples. The whole of the disgraceful proceedings which led up to he reception of the Russian envoys in Cabul are not probably as yet known, but the return of the troops fresh from Herat seems to afford some indication of the measures it was proposed to take. Herat has long been known as one of the centres of Moslem funaticism, and it seems that the influences which were made use of at Cabul to separate the Ameer Sheer Ah from the English alliance were still more strongly impressed at Herat. At all events the troops from the latter place arrived blown out with fanatic zeal to get rid of the Feringhi, and the British Resident and his small escort were at once in their power. Here was the opportunity for men whose minds Lad been worked up to fever pitch to show the reality of their sentiments. The Ameer could do nothing; his common daut Dand Shah was killed by his own mutinous troops, so it only remained for the occupants of the Residency to sell their lives as dearly as possible, Tint they did so, and that every man of that little body, Indian or English, did his duty, is known by the loss on the part of the mutineers. Nor was their courage apparently thrown away; for the hundredth time in British history the cool undaunted pluck of meu fated to die has had its lasting effect in damping the courage of the assailants. So it was that the mutineers at Cabul, after the ninssacre of the Resident and his attendants, seem to have recoiled from any attack on the scattered B: tial detachments still left in the country. Meanwhile, the spirit of fanaticism, inflamed, if not excited in the first instance, by the Russian officials in Turkestan, would seem to have burned more fiercely than was desirable, and the Russian advance towards Mery was rendered ineffective by the very spirit the Russian Government had created.
This we take to be (he true explanation of the present remarkable position of affairs in Turkestan and Afghanistan, The danger of a Mohammedan rising has probably by this time blown over, but the result has none the less shown that it isa danger to be avoided alike by Russia and Great Britain.
Meanwhile the announcement by tele-gras that Russia hud yielded up to Chinathe distrietof Kuldja seems to need some modification. As now announced, it is the southern part of Ili alone which is given up, with possession of one bank of the river Tekke and of the passes leading into Turkestan, This seems a very different thing from the rendition of Th first announced, and the Chinese Government is paying des ly for a rectification of frontier which apparently leaves in Russian hands the road from Semipolatinsk to Yarkand. The plain of the Altyshahr has apparently still its fascinations for Russian annexationists, and the check on the yond to Mary although seemingly londo ing Rassia to pause, as not resulted in inducing her to give up the temptation to fature spoliation, which the possession of a frontier capable of being made use of to cover the advance of an army, always offers to a semi-civilised power, Chung-how has after all been only half-successful, and the Chinese Government has been made to pay for the possession of a district which in no respect strengthens its defensive powers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.