utter strangers here, and that their wants and representations are ignored by the present civil and municipal commissioners, who are unable to understand the people or their languages through the defective existing dragoman service. The merchants say their treatment is becoming unbearable."

The Turkish convicts were removed from Nikosia to Kyrenia, thence to be carried to different penal establishments in the Turkish Empire. The Times correspondent wrote of the removal: "The marching out of the convicts from the gaol, their passing through the streets, the unshackling of the heavy chains from their limbs, and their formation into the parties of sixty in which they were marched away, formed a strange and touching scene. These men have been kept in a lax and easy custody, they have been permitted to work and to sell their work in the bazaars, and many times one has heard the clank of chains and seen the murderer passing through the streets unguarded, bearing back to prison the money for which he has sold the produce of his labour. So remunerative was the work of the convicts, that when they left Nikosia they were owed some thousands of piastres, for which they had given credit, and which they were unable to recover. Their debtors were principally the zaptiehs, the police set to guard them —a strange fact, and one well illustrative of the discipline of the Turkish Government. These men had thus money to give away, and as they passed down the streets, or were halted near the gates, here and there a wife or one or two little children would run up to a prisoner, and he would put money into their hands.”

The most contradictory accounts of the island were written and printed at home. On the one hand, Mr. Lang, ex-consul, and therefore a credible witness, contributed a glowing account of its prospects and capacities to a leading magazine; on the other, Mr. Forbes, the most famous special correspondent of the day, who had first won his great name by his letters to the Daily News during the Franco-German war, returned from a mission to the scene to record in an article, under the title of the "Fiasco of Cyprus," a spirited and sweeping condemnation of the policy of the occupation, describing the island as a pest-house, and its use for the purposes designed as vain.

But a new and other crisis in the East was now to divert the English mind even from events so fresh as the Congress and the occupation. We have said that just before Parliament separated questions were asked about an advance of the Russians upon the Oxus, and a Russian mission to Cabul. The step was in contravention of an old agreement; but Mr. Grant Duff was justified in speaking of it, as about this time he did, as a natural countermove on the part of Russia to the movement of our Indian troops. However, it led at once, on the part of the Ministry, to a demand made upon Shere Ali, the Ameer of Afghanistan, to receive an English mission, which was to be headed by Sir Neville Chamberlain, a native envoy being first sent to sound him upon the subject.

Lord Lytton, the Viceroy of India whom Lord Beaconsfield had appointed to succeed Lord Northbrook, avowedly to act more directly under orders from the India Office than previous viceroys had been content to do, carried out the new policy, which amounted to an entire inversion of the Indian frontier policy of many successive viceroyalties, including those of Lords Lawrence, Mayo, and Northbrook--a policy which has been called the policy of "masterly inactivity"-with ready promptitude. The news came fast of the events which suddenly, as far as she was concerned, plunged the country into a new Afghan war. At the beginning of September the Times correspondent at Calcutta stated that the Government was understood to have insisted on the Ameer of Cabul receiving a permanent Resident in his capital, and intimated that the Indian press strongly advised the collection of a force upon the frontier, with orders to march, if the British demand were refused. In a few days' time the same correspondent declared it to be indispensable that England "should possess a commanding influence over the triangle of territory formed on the map by Cabul, Ghuzme, and Jellalabad, together with power over the Hindoo Koosh." The "strongest frontier line which could be adopted would be along the Hindoo Koosh, from Pamir to Bamian, thence to the south by the Helmund, Girishk, and Candahar, to the Arabian Sea. War would be an evil," he added, "of infinitely less gravity than Russian influence in Cabul." It was proposed to guarantee the Ameer in territory and dynasty, but to demand the dismissal of the Russian Mission, to insist on the reception of a British Mission, and to plant agents in Balkh and Herat. The correspondent urged the Foreign Office to support Lord Lytton, and congratulated the Empire on a "Viceroy specially gifted with broad, statesmanlike views, the result partly of most vigilant and profound study, partly of the application of great natural intellectual capacity to the close cultivation of political science, and the highest order of statecraft."

The first news of the mission from Simla to Cabul was favourable. The Ameer of Afghanistan received the native agent in a friendly manner, and it was believed that Sir Neville Chamberlain, with infantry and cavalry escorts amounting to 1,000 men mostly armed, would be allowed to reach the chieftain's capital. Sir Neville was well chosen. He was described as "an officer of the highest class, a man carefully selected for the command of a separate army, and an experienced man in politics." He was said, too, to be likely for personal reasons to be acceptable to the Ameer. What might have been the result had time been given cannot be known. But time was not given. Lord Lytton left no doubt of the gravity of his intentions, and confined nothing this time to the secret department. Before the native envoy could return from Cabul, he pressed the mission forward,-" too large for a mission," said Lord Carnarvon, "too small for an army,"-to the entrance to the Khyber Pass. The necessity of a decision before

the winter appears to have been his plea. No sooner had Sir Neville crossed the frontier at Jumrood, than he was informned by a trusted officer of the Ameer, who had just received special instructions from his master, that its advance would be resisted by force, and the force was displayed on the hills commanding the defile. Sir Neville's agent, Major Cavagnari, conferred with the officer for three hours, and pointed out the direct and terrible responsibility of the Ameer, but without effect, and as a further advance would have caused a useless loss of valuable lives, and perhaps have ended in a massacre which would have sent an electric shock throughout India, the envoy took his cavalcade back quietly to Peshawur, there to await orders from the Governments of India and Great Britain.

It was at Ali Musjid, the first Afghan fort in the Khyber Pass, that Major Cavagnari demanded permission to proceed; and the report of a Times telegram, that the Ameer's officer told the Major that but for personal friendship he would shoot him dead, kindled a flame. There was a chance at last of fighting somebody. Indeed there was in any case now no alternative left but the recall of Lord Lytton or an invasion of Afghanistan. Thus rapidly arose the third Afghan war, with associations fraught with the catastrophe of General Elphinstone, and the success of General Pollock. In the letter which Sir Neville Chamberlain sent to Faiz Muhammed Khan, the Commissioner at the Fort of Ali Musjid, he wrote: "I expect to receive a reply not later than Sept. 18, so please understand that the matter is most urgent. At the same time it is my duty to inform you in a frank and friendly manner that if your answer be not what I trust it will be, or if you delay to send an early reply, I have no alternative but to make whatever arrangements may seem to me best for carrying out the instructions I have received from my Government.”

"Not the faintest shadow of a doubt," said the Times correspondent, “is entertained that this officer was acting under full instructions from the Ameer, inasmuch as Mufti Shah and Akhor, two responsible officers of the Ameer, have been dispatched from Cabul to Ali Musjid within the last few days. Both of these officers have been mentioned in Cabul newsletters as favourably disposed towards and engaged in direct communication with the Russian Embassy. Two important facts require to be noted-the first that this insolent rebuff occurred in presence of the two Indian Princes attached to the mission, who were personal witnesses of the interview between Major Cavagnari and the Ameer's officer; the second is that the Russian Envoy is still residing at Cabul. The mission will now be withdrawn. In view of the long-continued ungracious and hostile conduct of the existing ruler of Afghanistan, aggravated as it is by the present contemptuous slight offered to our national dignity, all possibility of renewing friendly relations with this uncompromising and morose barbarian is utterly hopeless; and, even if the prospects

were still hopeful, their realisation could only be accomplished at the complete sacrifice of proper self-respect and at the grave risk of very considerable loss of prestige in the eyes of our Indian subjects and of our feudatory Princes. In consequence, therefore, of the present conduct of Russia, and the future policy for us which this conduct now decisively indicates, and against which, fortunately for India, the Government and the English people are most fully and completely warned, this important question of frontier policy will henceforward cease to be treated from a merely Indian standpoint. It at once travels out of the domain of provincial into that of Imperial considerations, and those of the very highest magnitude. No one is more keenly alive than the Viceroy to this new development of the question, and he clearly discerns that it is only by the united efforts and energetic cooperation of the English and Indian Foreign Offices that this dangerously complex state of matters can be finally brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The Indian Government are backed by ample military resources to enable them promptly and severely to punish the Ameer for his insulting attitude of disrespect, but the significant fact is fully recognised that the Ameer is but the puppet, while Russia stands behind as the deus ex machiná. The measures, therefore, to be adopted in view of the Ameer's conduct cease to be a question of Indian policy, but are at once resolved into a serious problem of English foreign politics, which can only be dealt with in strict accordance with the settled principles of the English Cabinet. Meanwhile, the immediate object of the Viceroy is to endeavour to make it clearly understood that we have no cause of quarrel with the Afghan people, and to endeavour to win over and secure all the border tribes. The Khyberees have on the present occasion behaved well, and have shown every disposition to remain friendly."

The Daily News special correspondent at Simla telegraphed to the like effect with reference to the rejection of the British mission to Cabul; and in a subsequent telegram he stated that "the mission has been dissolved, and the Viceroy's emissary to Cabul has been recalled. The garrison of Quettah is to be reinforced by 3,000 additional troops, and a mixed European and native force of 4,000 men is to assemble immediately at Thull, at the entrance to the Kurrum Valley. A reserve force of 6,000 will be formed at Sukkur early in November. The route by the Kurrum Valley is through an open country to Cabul, and a force might advance to within seventy miles of that town, entirely avoiding the Khyber Pass. The intention of this demonstration is not an attack on Cabul, but to show the Ameer his helplessness. At the same time, by friendly treatment, an attempt will be made to conciliate the frontier tribes, who are weary of his oppression."

The Standard published a telegram from Bombay of the same date which said that "a special meeting of the Viceroy's Council

was held at Simla, and General Roberts, the commandant of the frontier forces, has started for Peshawur with secret orders. A large force is ordered to be in readiness on the frontier, where 12,000 men are already massed. The Indian newspapers universally consider that the affront to the mission demands an apology or the occupation of Afghanistan. A war feeling is prevalent among the Europeans, trade is disturbed, and Government securities have fallen."

The Telegraph had a despatch from Simla, dated the next day, as follows:-" Orders have been issued for the concentration of troops at the Thull entrance to the Kurrum Valley, and also at Quettah above the Bolan Pass. The Commissioner at Peshawur is engaged in negotiations which have for their object to detach the Khyberees from the Ameer; and the authorities are hopeful that the end will be attained, as the Khyberees, by their friendly bearing to the mission, have incurred the severe displeasure of Shere Ali. The mission itself is now broken up, and Sir Neville Chamberlain returns at once to Simla."

The Indian papers published the two letters, dated August 14 and August 23, sent by the Viceroy to the Ameer, the first announcing that it had been decided to send a mission to Cabul, and asking for it a safe conduct and proper reception; the second, offering condolences on the death of the Ameer's heir. To neither of these letters was any answer returned. The Standard published their text, together with that of the letter which Sir Neville Chamberlain addressed to the Afghan commandant at the Khyber Pass.

However much opinion might differ as to the new Frontier Policy, and this its immediate result, it was generally felt that the prestige of England must be maintained. The Times, indeed, maintained that there was no change of policy. "We have just done,” it said, "what a year ago we had no intention of doing, and we have elicited proof of an unfriendly feeling on the part of the Ameer of Cabul which a year ago we were willing to persuade ourselves did not really exist. Our Afghan policy is, nevertheless, the same now that it was then. Its aim has never varied, and the changes it has undergone have been brought about under the pressure of changed circumstances. Russia has engaged herself not to meddle with the affairs of Afghanistan, and it is by her breach of this engagement that she has forced us to a course which we should not otherwise have followed. Our desire is and will be to respect the Afghan ruler, and to maintain as far as we can the integrity of his dominions. But it is one thing to leave the Afghan ruler to himself and another thing to leave him to Russia. We are compelled now to assert a counter-influence, and to make sure that it shall prevail. To do nothing would be to surrender Afghanistan to Russia, or, in other words, to allow the gateway of India to pass into the hands of a rival and possibly an unfriendly Power, who could select his own time for turning his position to