CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Asiatic Quarterly opens with a bright picture of some of the native Indian principalities, particularly Rewab, a State in which British supervision has recently worked wonders. The revenue has been raised, with greater ease to the people, from £70,000 to £126,000, courts and jails have been built, coal-mines of great value have been opened, and complete civil order has been established, a boon for which the people are openly grateful. Mr. Conder sends a paper on " The Aryans in Syria," which makes us wish that he would write a full account of the Frankish occupation, which lasted for more than fifty years, and produced a remarkably separate system of society. Mr. Boulger's sketch of present Afghan politics is curious from the account be gives of Ishak Khan, the Ameer's lieutenant beyond the Hindoo Koosh. This officer is distrusted by his superior— who, however, as a true Afghan, would distrust his own sabre if it rusted—but is believed to be loyal, and a bitter enemy of Russia. He has an idea, which does not show judgment, that England must occupy Afghanistan. The Ameer has not as yet selected an heir, and may possibly pass over his eldest son, Habibullah, a promising lad of fifteen, in favour of a younger child. That kind of favouritism, the result of polygamy, is the curse of Oriental monarchies.
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