Afghan trade to all parts of India, and they now form the greater part of the Hindus in Sind. There are also many Afghans, Rajputs, and Belochees, and a large number of Siddees, or persons of African descent ; for in former days Karachi was a great slave market, and a valuable trade was carried on between that port and Muscat. The price at Muscat for a healthy black boy was Rs. 15 to Rs. 30, and at Karachi he fetched 60 to 100. An Abyssinian beauty cost as much as

Rs. 500.

The usual dress of the male inhabitants consists of a loose shirt and Turkish trousers of blue cotton, with a coloured scarf and a quilted cotton cap; but the upper classes wear enormous turbans, and the Amils, who occupy the position of Government servants and clerks, and the Seths (wholesale merchants, bankers, &c.), use an extraordinary head-dress called a "siraikitopi," which in shape has the appearance of our ordinary beaver or silk hat turned upside down, but is very different in colour.

In Karachi, the seat of Government of the province, there is a wondrous intermingling of people from all parts of the East and West. In addition to the resident inhabitants, who are themselves a very mixed population from all parts of Sind, you will encounter in a visit to the bazaars of this rising town, Arabs from Muscat and the neighbourhood; Persians who bring horses from the Gulf, and sheep with long and drooping ears like those of rabbits; Portuguese from Goa; Pathuns, wild and uncouth, from the hills; Armenian priests, with their tall figures and noble bearing, seeking change on the benignant plains of India from their monasteries perched on the lofty peaks of Persian mountains; and here and there an English lady doing her marketing in the early morning. Another class, not numerous, but very influential, is that of the Parsis.

They form in India a compact and self-supporting community of the highest respectability. There are no Parsi beggars, and no Parsi woman of questionable character.

They are endowed with great quickness of perception, and are animated with an insatiable desire to acquire wealth; but they are extremely charitable, and in Karachi, Bombay, and other parts of India, they have founded benevolent institutions of inestimable value.

RAILWAYS

Among the gilt-edged securities which are negotiated on the Stock Exchange, and which are eagerly sought for as sound, though high-priced investments, there is one that will be found on the list of Indian railways, and which is entitled "The Scind, Punjab, and Delhi Annuities."

Just forty years ago a Company was registered in London to construct a railway between Karachi and Hydrābād, a distance of about a hundred miles; and two years later the same Company was empowered to maintain communication between Hydrābād and Multan, by means of a fleet of steamboats called the "Indus Steam Flotilla," and also to make a railway through the Punjab from Multan to Lahūr and Amritzar.

The Steam Flotilla gave place to the Indus Valley Railways, and on the eastern side of India the line was extended to Delhi; and so by private enterprise a line of railway, 700 miles in length, connecting Karachi with Delhi, was completed under the title that I have already mentioned.

Nearly completed! for a link was still wanting, namely, a bridge across the river Indus at Sukkur.

In 1885 the Secretary of State for India exercised the power that he possessed and took over the railway with several of its offshoots, and in 1889 the missing

link was added, namely, a bridge, which has the largest rigid span in the world (there being 790 feet clear width between the abutments), and which was manufactured at the works of Messrs. Westwood & Baillie, at Millwall, not three miles from this spot.

The railway, when it became the property of the State, was re-christened, and is now known as the North-Western (State) Railway of India, and is in fact the Outer Circle on the western and north-western frontier of that Empire.

The main line, 1174 miles in length, leaving the ocean terminus at Karachi, passes through those districts to which I have referred in the earlier parts of this paper, the scene of Sir Charles Napier's campaign in Sind; it crosses the Indus at Sukkur, on the bridge that I have mentioned; it traverses Multan almost within sight of the great battle-fields of the Sutlej, Sobraon, Aliwal, Moodkee, and Ferozeshur, fought during the Sikh campaign of 1846, and it enters Lahur, the old capital of the Lion of the Punjab. Then it turns eastwards through Amritzar, "the fount of immortality," with its "Golden Temple" of worldwide fame, to which the setting sun adds beauty and embellishment as its rays fall upon the burnished roof, and amplify its sheen and glitter-past Loodhiana, and the junction for Simla, our modern capital during the hot months, and so into Delhi, the "city of the Great Moguls," the "true metropolis of India." The names of the places that I have mentioned recall anxious and troublesome days when our troops were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the gallant warriors of the Punjab, or were desperately fighting to overcome the Mutiny, and to maintain the autonomy of the Empire. Delhi is the terminus of the North-Western Railway, but from that point there is a network of lines which will take the traveller to the far-famed palaces of Agra, to those scenes of sorrow and of glory, Lucknow and

Cawnpore, or will carry him to Calcutta, or back to the western side of India, to the great city of Bombay.

From the Outer Circle extend branches, one of which, that from Sukkur, on the Indus, to Chamman, which traverses the dreaded Boland Pass, strikes into the heart of Afghanistan, and may be regarded as the first section of a railway to Kandahar; while the other, from Lahur to Peshawur, brings us within reasonable distance of Cabul itself.

But not content with this Outer Circle, an Inner one is now being constructed. The Indus is again to be bridged at Hydrābād, and from that point a railway is to be made on the eastern or left side of the river to Khyrpur and Bukkur, and from Bhawulpur, on the north-western, another line, the Southern Punjab, is to strike across India to join a line already made between Buttinda and Amballa.

I have perhaps dwelt at too great a length on the North-Western Railway, but I have done so with a view of submitting to you the enormous value of the addition made to the British Empire by the conquest of the Province of Sind and of the little muddy harbour of Karachi half a century ago; and in conclusion I will briefly call your attention to the vast importance that they may be to us in the future.

It is not necessary to suppose that the desire to make further conquest is likely to create difficulties between the British Empire and that of our great Northern neighbour, Russia, but it is well within the area of probabilities that at no very distant date, and under certain events, the two Powers must come into contact, friendly or otherwise, and let us hope that it will be the former.

The event to which I refer is a disputed succession to the throne of Afghanistan; and from the past history of that country it is an event very likely to occur on the demise of the present ruler.

In Mohamedan countries, primogeniture, or the right attaching to seniority by birth, carries very little weight, and blood-relationship is never a factor of great importance. It is usual for the reigning sovereign to nominate his successor during his lifetime, and his nominee may be one of his own brethren or one of his numerous sons. In neither case does the tie of brotherhood have the effect of inducing those who are not selected, to accept quietly the accession to power of the fortunate nominee.

Children of the same father, but by different mothers, imbibe at the very breast the same feelings of jealousy that existed between their mothers; and as they grow in years, so that jealous feeling increases, and when manhood is reached there is frequently hatred and malice between them instead of a tie of brotherly love. Then, Then, again, a handsome person, physical strength, undoubted courage, are qualities that have a great effect upon a warlike people like the Afghans, and all these characteristics must be taken into account before the nominee of the Amir can hope to mount the steps of the throne.

If his successor be supported by both the great Powers to whom I have referred, then there is every probability that his seat may be rendered secure; but if these Powers take adverse sides and each supports a pretender, what will be the consequence?

It is a difficulty that we may undoubtedly have to face, and in raising it I am by no means a bird of illomen, for I trust and hope that diplomacy may be able to avert one result that might ensue, namely, a declaration of war.

But should that be the disastrous termination of a disputed succession in Afghanistan, and should the troops of the Queen and Empress have to face those of his Imperial Russian Majesty on the banks of the Helmund, then shall we learn to appreciate the value