are other infirmities in our eastern system than the vicious
selection of generals.

But all the topics proper to this fifth head will fall more naturally
under a paper expressly applying itself to India; and for the present we
shall confine ourselves to the previous four.

I. And _first_, then, as regards the original motive assigned for the
Affghan expedition. What profit in prospect, or what danger in
reversion, moved us to so costly an enterprise? We insist singly on its
cost, which usually proves a sufficient _sufflamen_ in these days to the
belligerent propensities of nations. Cicero mentions the advocate by
name who first suggested the question of _Cui bono_, as a means of
feeling backwards in a case of murder for the perpetrator. Who was it
that had been interested in the murder? But the same question must be
equally good as a means of feeling forwards to the probable wisdom of a
war. What was the nature of the benefit apprehended, and who was to reap
it? The answer to this very startling question, in the case of the
Affghan expedition, stood thus for a long time on the part of our own
unofficial press--that the object had been to forestall Russia, driving
with headlong malice _en route_ for the Indus, by surprising her
advanced guard in Kohistan. Certainly, if the surprise were all, there
might be something plausible in the idea. If the Russians should ever
reach Kohistan, we will answer for their being exceedingly surprised at
finding an English camp in that region for the purpose of entertaining
themselves. In reality no lunatic projector, not Cleombrotus leaping
into the sea for the sake of Plato's Elysium, not Erostratus committing
arson at Ephesus for posthumous fame, not a sick Mr Elwes ascending the
Himalaya, in order to use the rarity of the atmosphere as a ransom from
the expense of cupping in Calcutta, ever conceived so awful a folly. Oh,
playful Sir John Mandeville, sagacious Don Quixote, modest and ingenious
Baron Munchausen!--ye were sober men, almost dull men, by comparison
with the _tete exaltee_ from some upper element of fire, or limbo of the
moon, who conceived this sublime idea of leaping forward by a thousand
miles, to lay salt on the tail of a possible or a conceivable enemy. The
enemy--the tail--the salt--these were all _in nubibus_; the only thing
certain was the leap, and the thousand miles. And then, having achieved
this first stage on the road, why not go on to St Petersburg, and take