It is impossible not to admire the hardihood of this remarkable correspondent when he alleges that the war was "entirely against our will, and all our endeavours to avoid it." But this is not the matter with which I am at present concerned. The official character of these communications will be denied by no one, and they make it clear that the "Scientific Frontier" was intended as a barrier against Russia, and would have made the Hindoo Khosh the external boundary of the Indian Empire. Such a frontier is manifestly the dream of a military specialist, to whose mental vision the Indian Empire, with all its diverse interests, has no existence except as a frontier to be defended against the Russians. And it illustrates the ignorance and precipitate folly which has plunged us in our present difficulties that a project so wild should have been seriously entertained. To have carried it out the subjugation of Afghanistan would have been an indispensable preliminary, and then the civilizing of it, by means of a system of roads and strong garrisons throughout the country; the entire cost of these vast operations being defrayed by a country already taxed to the last point of endurance, heavily burdened with an increasing debt, and ravaged by periodical famines. Such, however, was the "Scientific Frontier" for which a "specially gifted Viceroy," trained in "the highest order of political statecraft," declared war against the Ameer. But the frontier which we obtained at the close of the war, and which Ministers and Ministerial journals would have us believe is the genuine article which they wanted from the beginning, is not only not this frontier, but it has not the smallest resemblance to it. The new frontier does not differ from the old except in three particulars. We hold the Khyber Pass as far as Lundi Kotal, and we have acquired the right to quarter troops in the Kurram Valley and the Valley of Peshin. Of these the Kurram Valley is a mere _cul-de-sac_, leading nowhere. But I will not ask of my readers to accept of my judgment on this matter. Among the best known advocates for a forward and aggressive policy in Afghanistan is Dr. Bellew. An accomplished linguist and an experienced traveller, he accompanied Colonel Lumsden's mission to Kandahar in 1857; he was also a member of the mission entrusted with the settlement of the Seistan boundary question, and no man living is better acquainted with the geography and people of Afghanistan. I believe it will not be denied that Lord Lytton, during the recent war, trusted largely in his knowledge and suggestions. He has thus expressed himself on the policy of occupying the Kurram Valley:--