The news of the week from Afghanistan is not important.
General Stewart, with the western column, is pressing forward slowly, and has found the Khojak Pass undefended. General Roberts, after ascending the Shaturgardan, which he found only 11,600 feet high, and undefended, has returned to Koorum with the central column, leaving a force to protect the Peiwar Kotal. He returned by a new route, and his baggage was attacked by the Mangals, who were only driven off after a sharp fight by the Goorkhas, under the command of Captain Goad, who was mortally wounded. General Browne, with the eastern column, has advanced towards Jellalabad, and was to occupy the city on Friday. His communications are still threatened, and the Government, we regret to see, has adopted the policy of terror. A tribe of Kheyls, who are troublesome in the neighbour- hood of the Khyber, are to be surrounded, and if necessary, extirpated, a measure which will no more pacify the mountains than the extirpation of the Macdonalds of Glencoe pacified the Highlands. Our countrymen seem to think these tribes have no right to resist invasion. The Khyber is to be placed in the custody of the small contingents sent up by the Chiefs of the Protected Sikh States, who will guard our communications there, as they guarded them in the Mutiny. The arrangement is, we believe, a wise one, though it is hard on the contingents, who will get a good deal of miscellaneous fighting, and no glory.
