INDIA AND THE EAST.

Auckland Star, Issue 378, 27 March 1871, Page 2

INDIA AND THE EAST.

Galle, February 22. The Cerberus left for Melbourne on the sth February, and is to coast at Batavia. She steams.and "sails slowly, but is an object of interest at all ports visited by her. The crew are sickly from the heat. The Magdala and Abyssinia, monitors, for Bombay harbour, have arrived there. Small-pox is prevalent in India, China, and Europe. Simultaneously, a large increase has Deen made on the telegraphic rates on the India and European lines, which is exciting indignation iv India. The rumoured cession of Pondicherry to Prussia has provoked a strong feeling. The reduction of the mail steamer passenger rates will bring all the traffic back to the old company, and it is expected there will be a crowding of the steamers. A Eussian line of Suez canal steamers is about to run from Odessa to China.

Tribes in Arabia are still fighting. A famine in Persia \a threatening, and there has been an outbreak of wild tribes again ; the tea planters' lives aye in danger, and one oi- two have been killed. The troops are marching there. The coffee crops in Ceylon and India are very short. Tonnage is scarce at Ceylon, India, and China ; and freights are steady, at high rates.