self to destruction on your behalf, would cheat you, pilfer you, lie to you, and daily and hourly neglect your orders; the true philosophy then is to cultivate their better qualities and make the best of their defects; treating them with what indulgence is possible, respecting their religious prejudices, but, at the same time, obliging them to respect yours, and not to treat you as if you were an unclean animal, keeping them strictly to their duty, even though it be a matter of routine; mindful that though false alarms may deaden vigilance, dishabitude does so, much more certainly, and that what men are not taught in ordinary times to do as a matter of course, they may, in time of need, look on as a hardship. But I've lectured too long, and must return to more stirring matter. NOTES. (a) Every petty chief exercises judicial powers in his own territory even to taking life; the government is rarely troubled with a reference, except in cases of treason, infringement of the border, or offences committed by one state against another. (b) A portion of the system mentioned in the preceding note, which gives, tacitly at least, to every Sardar, police jurisdiction in his own lands. Mutilation, as stated in the body of the work, is the common punishment in cases that do not meet a capital sentence. (c) There is much room for improvement in the British jails; wherever subordinate officers of any nation or colour, but especially in India, are not diligently superintended, abuses will follow, despite the most rigid laws and regulations. No edicts will supply the place of vigilant, personal inspection by the British functionary; and the jack-of-all-trades sort of work, expected from a civilian, does not favor this needful attention. (d) The good old fashion of Brâhmans and others sitting dharna at their neighbours doors, and there fasting or threatening violently to destroy themselves, is falling into disuse in British India. There are various sorts of dharna, but the object of the act always is, to bring the guilt of the victim's blood on the enemy or oppressor; and with the same motive does the chûrî-mār (vide ch. iii. p.) wound himself. "Cutting off the nose to vex the face," is a marvellously common practice: I once saw a poor, half-witted creature, who fancied the magistrate would not render him justice, approach that functionary, put a petition into his hand, and, without leaving a moment for him to open the paper, rush into a well close by, at least thirty feet deep. Fortunately he was only bruised, and was glad to catch the rope that was let down to draw him out. The Patthân dharna is generally of a more intelligible kind, and directed to the injury of the defendant instead of the plaintiff, the troops of Amir Khan, (already mentioned in the notes to ch, i.) more than once put him to the question. (e) I wonder Bellasis allowed the little Mûltāni to talk after this fashion; for the real state of the case the reader is referred to notes on ch. 1st above referred to. Perhaps, however, Chând Khan meant that Amir Khân was deprived of a respectable and lucrative possession when his marauding propensities were restricted. (ƒ) A scene like that here described occurred either to Lord Auckland or his predecessor. (g) The Sikhs are very jealous of ra'iyats or others leaving their lands and settling elsewhere; and on the other hand hold it a point of honor not to give up even notorious offenders who take refuge with them. The rules proposed by Bellasis regarding thieves, settlers, and others, have, to my knowledge, been attempted, and with some success. (h) I believe, for every practical purpose; and the zealous and able officer who lately served in the Sikh army against the Eusafzais is convinced of the absurdity of attempting to enforce European discipline in the field. CHAPTER NINTH. CONTENTS. "A dose of history which the reader may read or not, as he pleases." "The martial courage of a day is vain, Wordsworth. The current of my story has been a good deal clogged by feeling that in the Panjâb I am, to many of my readers, treading on a perfect "terra incognita;" as my object is, therefore, to edify as well as amuse, to be intelligible, as well as interesting, I will even venture to give another half chapter of downright history, straightforward matter of facts, as far as I know. But, gentle reader of these unworthy adventures, you who read to learn, you who read to idle, and you who read to scoff, you are all right, all wrong, as in most questions are both parties to a degree; though my tale be not a veritable history, it need not therefore be all fiction: although it is neither romance nor novel, it is not therefore all fact, but as before noticed it is grounded on reality, and even if the pictures are failures, each individual sketched has sat for his likeness, and the nation at large has been before me from which to draw, and to lead those who peruse my pages into some acquaintance with what has been, what may be, and what are the moral and physical features of the Panjab. I left off in my historical outline with the partial consolidation of the Sikh confederacy on the death of Ahmad Shah (a); some notice was also given of the condition of the people and the relative proportions of Sikh, Hindu and Musalman, and an estimate of their military force, which was entirely, I may say, the creature of Ranjit Singh's genius; if after all it can be called ability and foresight to throw aside the weapon that won him his laurels in order to try one that cuts both ways, and in the use of which he was inexperienced. I am inclined to consider that the Maharajah would have shewn more foresight if he had devoted the same attention that he did to European tactics, to rendering his troops, really efficient after their own fashion; if he had erected fortifications around Lahaur and Amritsir on European models, and there planted his guns, encum bering his troops in the field with but a few and perfectly equipped light artillery; he had models near at hand, and even furnished him by the British; but oriental penuriousness prevented his doing the thing properly. "It sounds well to talk of a hundred guns; yes, a hundred halfequipped (b) are surely better than twenty-five in better style." So reasoned the King, and his courtiers told him all he did was right; and thus, while he affected to be able to bring sixty guns into the field, he could not really, after one day's march, have manoeuvred with twenty; every troop has its gun-carriage agency, and every Sardar in charge of guns makes very much what arrangements seem to him best, and although each gun has eight horses attached, and is, according to their notions, well looked to, the waggons and tumbrels are left to the tender mercies of horned cattle. Can any one conceive a greater absurdity? Is it not like tying up one leg of a man going to run a race? but so it is, and a very good sample it offers of the bandobast of the military establishment; eight horses, I was told, were put into the gun traces, as the country was generally heavy and roads bad, but when I asked, "why not horse your tumbrels too?" the reply was, "bullocks, do for them, or in case of need, we can pack the ammunition on camels." The horses, throughout the service, both in cavalry a nd artillery, are undersized, and wanting weight either for a charge or for efficiency in draught, and when it is considered that many of the sawārs, supplied by the Jagirdârs, are six and eight anna men, it may be conceived how ill mounted they must be, and how poorly fed the cattle; for the British, I believe, give twelve annas a day to their Irregulars, and yet have a difficulty in securing their efficiency. The infantry, then, of the Panjab is their standby, as regular troops, but as to how much they are to be relied on, I have already given my opinion, and having seen a good deal of their Sardars and commandants, the only wonder to me is, how they achieve such good stage effect on parade, and how, with so much want of regimental domestic economy, their paltans hold together for a day. There is no such thing as regular pensions for wounds to individuals, or reward to their families for falling in the service; a disabled soldier is permitted to hang on, to sit in his lines and draw his pay, or part of it; when he dies, there is an end of him and his claims. Furloughs' are given for two months of the year, generally in the rainy season; during these months the troops receive full pay, though the system of Dost Muhammed and others was to calculate the year as having ten months, and to pay only for so many, considering the men as defunct or in a state of hybernation during the rest of But to my historical sketch. the year. Ahmad Shah cannot be said to have ever held the sovereignty of the Panjab; through his Lieutenants he ruled Kashmir, Mültan and Sirhind, but the proper country of the Panjab was never for any continued period under his control; more than once the Afghân Governor of Lahaur was restricted to the bounds of his capital, and it was only by repeated incursions, and by the terror his personal prowess always carried with it, that the Abdâlli Monarch continued to keep a footing south-east of the Atak. In 1773 Ahmad Shah died of a cancer in his face, and was succeedby his son, whom, as Prince Timur, the Sikhs had already driven from Amritsir; he was of a different temperament from his father, and was content with his western possessions, and unwilling to continue the struggle with the wild and daring Sikh leaders, then rising into notice. During his reign therefore of twenty years, the land was nearly at peace, and would have been entirely so, had the Sikhs been content to leave unmolested Multan, Mankera and the other Pâthan possessions. It was during the early days of the Sikh temporal fortunes that the family of Ranjit Singh first came into notice. Desoo, a Jât cultivator and owner of three ploughs and one well (c), is the first of the family noted in Sikhannals; his son, Nodh Singh, married the daughter of Gulâb Singh, a Zamindar of Majethia, who had taken the pahal (d), and persuaded his son-in-law to do so too. Nodh Singh, therefore, on his marriage, forsook his peaceful occupations and joined as a trooper the misal of Kapür Singh of Gujarat, called the Fyzoollapureea misal; he died in 1750, leaving three sons, when the eldest, Charat Singh, joining |