The disturbances on the North-West frontier of India turn out
to be much more serious than appeared from the telegram on which we commented last week. The immediate scene of hostili- ties is the Agror valley, in the Huzara district, north-east of Peshawur, and quite close upon the looality of the Sittana cam- paign of two or three years ago. The spark has thus been thrown into the very neighbourhood where a conflagration was expected. A very much larger force was likewise despatched than the telegram represented. Besides the 5th Ghoorkhas and a mountain battery which were on the spot, there have been ordered up 700 men of two English regiments, the 19th and 77th; the whole of another English regiment, the 6th Foot, armed with Sniders; and two native regiments, with a squadron corps of Guides, a battery of Horse Artil- lery, and a wing of the 16th Bengal Cavalry. Another English regi- ment and five native regiments are also spoken of as a reserve. As the Bombay Gazette, whose military intelligence we have reason to believe is now most trustworthy, remarks, this is a force of no incon- aiderable size. It is larger than the force which operated in the Sittana campaign, and approaches the scale of the Abyssinian Expedition. We should say it is quite likely that the Indian Government "knows of difficulties that the public does not dream of." The Swatee.s, another mountain tribe in the vicinity, are cer- tainly arming for a holy war against the English, and the whole border is influenced by a certain pretender calling himself Feroze whom the Indian journals half believe to be in Russian pay. According to the Delhi Gazette, also, the Bezootees, beyond Kohat, which is south of Peshawar, as the disturbed districts are north and north-east, are unsettled and turbulent. Anyhow, all the preparations are being made for a campaign which will be most difficult and hazardous, and the Indian papers teem with military appointments. Can it be possible that more than a frontier war is contemplated? The Central Asian policy of the Indian Govern- ment has lately changed, and the scene of the coming hostilities is conveniently near Affghanistan.
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