The month of August, however, found the Envoy still cheerful and sanguine. The convulsions of the Douranees and the spasms of the Ghilzyes were regarded by him as the accompaniments only of those infantine fevers which were inseparable from the existence of the tribes. In vain Rawlinson, with steady eye watching those symptoms, and probing with deep sagacity the causes of the mortal ailments out of which arose all those fierce throes of anguish, protested that throughout Western Afghanistan there was a strong national feeling against us; and that difficulties and dangers were coiling their serpent folds around us with irresistible force. Macnaghten still asked what we had to fear, and thus, on the 2nd of August, addressed his less sanguine colleague: I am not going to read you a lecture, first, because when you indited your letter of the 28th ult. you pleaded guilty to the influence of bile; and secondly, because at the present writing I must own the same impeachment; but I must pen a few remarks, in the hope of inducing you to regard matters a little more “_couleur de rose_.” You say, “The state of the country causes me many an anxious thought—we may thresh the Douranees over and over again, but this rather aggravates than obviates the difficulty of overcoming the national feeling against us—in fact, our tenure is positively that of military possession, and the French in Algiers, and the Russians in Circassia, afford us an example on a small scale of the difficulty of our position.” Now upon what do you found your assertion that there is a national feeling against us, such as that against the French in Algiers or the Russians in Circassia? Solely, so far as I know, because the turbulent Douranees have risen in rebellion. From Mookoor to the Khybur Pass all is content and tranquillity, and wherever we Europeans go we are received with respect, and attention, and welcome. But the insurrection of the Douranees is no new occurrence. The history of the rule of the Barukzye Sirdars would show that they were engaged in one continuous struggle with their turbulent brethren. If they were able to reduce them to subjection with their contemptible means, what should we have to fear from them? We have given them something to lose which they had not before, and you may rely upon it that they will be quiet enough as soon as they are satisfied (which they ought to be pretty well by this time) of the futility of opposition, provided some means are adopted of preventing Yar Mahomed from carrying on his intrigues. Then, the Ghilzyes have been in arms. True. But it would have been unreasonable to suppose that they should surrender their independance without a struggle, and we have now put the bit in their mouths. I do not concur with you as to the difficulty of our position. On the contrary, I think our prospects are most cheering, and with the materials we have there ought to be little or no difficulty in the