Electric despatches bring anticipatory news from the overland mail, which
left Bombay on the 25th of last month. A tremendous accident had oc- curred at Benares. A fleet of thirty boats containing ordnance-stores had been blown to destruction by the explosion of three thousand barrels of gun- powder with which they were freighted. Four hundred and twenty persons were killed on the spot, about eight hundred more were wounded, and many houses were levelled. with the ground. . •
Some scanty particulars arc conveyed in a letter in the Delhi Gazette, from *pares. "On the night of the 1st of May, about half-past ten o'clock, blew up with a terrific explosion a fleet of thirty Government ordnance-boats, with 3,000 copper barrels of gunpowder, containing 110pounds each. They caught fire from a separate boat on fire, and with some other boats moored near be- longing to private parties, were shattered to atoms; destroying, I believe, every individual soul in them. On shore every house and person within a certain range was destroyed or severely injured. About 500 dead, dying, and wounded were removed.yesterday ; and the scene of destruction, death, and suffering was heartrending. Messis. Tuttle aral.Charles' New Hotel IS de- 'strayed, as also a lofty house near it,, the residence of one of the Delhi Princes, whose household of 150 persons were buried in its ruins, and only
eleven got out, i
and they killed. A court of inquiry is sitting; but I believe the conductor in charge s almost the only survivor to tell the tale."
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