NEWS OF THE WEEK.
SIR MORTIMER DURAND, the British Envoy, has arrived at Cabal, and has been received with every mark of honour -usual among Asiatics. He is attended by the Commander- in-Chief, he is lodged in the Palace of Habiboollah Khan, the Heir-Apparent, and he was presented with one hundred trays of fruit covered with velvets and brocades and also with ,some bags of Cabulee coinage, the latter, if we mistake not, o, recognition of some kind of superiority in the visitor. The Ameer, in fact, means to be as courteous as possible, which is satisfactory, though it does not in the least imply that the agreeable host will abate one jot of any demand that he has to make. All the evidence points to an amicable interview, and the only doubtful point is the interpretation the fanatics of Afghan independence will put upon it. If they think that the Ameer is connecting himself too' closely with the infidel, there may be trouble yet; but we should say it was improbable. The dread of the Ameer is on all his subjects, and he is moreover protected, as no predecessor has been, by a small standing army raised by himself, paid by himself, and in- dependent alike of the fierce clans and the mob. Still, a jezail carries far; and we suspect the Indian Government will draw an easier breath when it hears that its agent is safely back through the Khyber Pass. It is a strangely Asiatic state of affairs, the existence of a State with which we are on close terms of friendship, whose Sovereign is our sworn ally and pensioner, and yet in which our envoy's life would hardly be pronounced by an actuary worth one week's purchase.
