The news from the - Black Mountain up to the 18th
inst. is not quite satisfactory. The tribes which murdered the British officers are showing themselves unusually stubborn. it was believed in•the beginning of the week that they were about to come in and accept terms ; but they have refused, audit has been necessary not only to burn their villages, but to carry off their crops. The work is repulsive to British feeling, tut there is no other way of reaching these mountaineers when they take to robbery and murder. Their villages, it must be remembered, are in reality brigand-barracks, and the destruction of the crops, though a heavy loss, does not involve starvation. Both penalties, moreover, can be avoided by the surrender of the murderers. If the tribesmen hold out, it Will probably be necessary to annex them, and so compel them to live under the influence of laws regularly enforced, and to earn money to pay their taxes. That course would be much the best, both for the hillmen and our own peaceful culti- vators; but that is an enterprise without limits. Where we annex we must govern ; and we do not want the government of the whole Western Himalaya on our hands.
