NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE advance on Chitral progresses well. Colonel Kelly from Gilghit, with less than five hundred men, has fought ids way to Mastuj, driving the hillmen before him by successive attacks of the old daredevil kind, and though his -enemies have retreated "towards Chitral," and may make a 'stand at a terrible pass which remains to be carried, he will probably reach his destination. Too much, however, depends upon his individual life to permit men at home to be certain ; for if he fell, heart might go out of the men, chiefly Sikhs and Cashmerees, of whom he makes heroes. General Low and the great advance has been stopped for an unexpected time by the difficulty of bridging the Panjkora, but a column of two thousand men, including the Guides and a Sikh regiment, have crossed in rafts with a loss of only three men from drowning. They will advance faster than the main body, but though Umra Khan is irresolute or despairing and the clansmen daunted by ill-success—which proves to them, among other things, that their Moollahs are impostors—there may yet be severe fighting on the higher points of the one hundred and forty miles still to be passed. The clansmen, brave as they are, shrink before the superior weapons of the British, even fanaticism not inducing them to stand up to the Maxim.guns ; but it is evident from the Times' telegrams that they have not given up hope in their fastnesses. We shall win ; but having won, our stay or retreat remains to be decided upon broad grounds of policy.
