time to time we have been brought into contact, the Sikh State, considered as one of the substantive powers of India, is of very recent formation. It may perhaps surprise some readers to be told that the forces of the English were never engaged with those of any prince who had possessed for a century the power which he pitted against us. We never met an army of the Mogul. His name and authority were occasionally employed, it is true, for the purpose of imparting some dignity or substance to the pretensions of an enterprising leader; but there was no force really representing the Imperial authority. Our antagonists were either lieutenants of provinces which had been converted in the last or even in the present generation into independent principalities; or military adventurers who were battling their way to greatness through the political chaos around them. To this general character of our adversaries the Sikh state offers no exception. On the contrary, its history illustrates with unusual clearness the singular conditions of Oriental dominion; at the same time that the incidents of its original constitution explain many of the difficulties of our present position and many of the embarrassments which await us hereafter.

Though the Punjab-the country of the Five Rivers' presents, on the map of India, the appearance of a peculiarly compact and well-defined territory, yet it possesses in reality fewer of the characteristics of a consolidated and durable state than even that straggling principality of Malwa, which still represents the territorial acquisitions of Scindiah. The Punjab may be more truly defined as a geographical expression' than any country to which that depreciating phrase has been yet applied. A certain recognised district was always comprised between the natural boundaries of the Sutlej and the Indus; but this territory never gave birth to a distinct nationality or constituted a separate kingdom, or an independent state. There was never, in short, during any known period of Indian history, a king, or prince, or people of the Punjab, as distinguished from the rulers and tribes of Delhi or Affghanistan. The province was never known in any integral form except under that denomination of Runjeet Singh's dominion,' which it acquired about forty years since; and which its present title still represents. Before this time it served as a channel for that stream of conquest which was perpetually flowing from west to east, and was alternately incorporated, more or less completely, either with the kingdom of Candahar or the kingdom of Delhi.

Even with this unsubstantial locality the Sikhs are not nationally identifiable. They have neither dynastic nor terri

torial traditions. They do not exclusively belong to the Punjab, nor does the Punjab exclusively belong to them. There are more of them to be found on the east of the Sutlej than on the west of the Chenab. They have now, however, for more than half a century, maintained a possession and exercised a dominion extraordinary even among the anomalous events of Oriental history; and though the very recent struggles in these parts must have necessarily abated the misconceptions usually prevalent on Indian affairs, and introduced to general notice some of the leading characteristics of the Sikh State, yet we still think it advisable to record so many of the facts as may furnish the best materials for general conclusions.

About the middle of the fifteenth century, there was born in the Punjab a Hindoo of respectable caste named Nanak. He assumed the office of religious teacher, in which capacity he endeavoured to demolish the distinctive and unsocial institutions of Hindooism; and, after breaking down the barriers of caste, to reconcile Hindoos and Mahometans in the acceptance of a common creed, formed of a popular combination of both religions, though leaning more nearly to his own. This task he so far accomplished, that he was enabled to bequeath to a selected successor, together with certain recognised duties, a numerous and faithful class of followers. So steadily was this office of Gooroo, or spiritual teacher, perpetuated, that it gradually communicated a substantial form to the new sect, who soon constituted a distinct, though not influential, element in the population of those parts. The succession to this Theocratic leadership appears to have been irregular; being determined sometimes by bequest, sometimes by nomination, sometimes by descent, and sometimes, as we learn from an Imperial decree of Aurungzebe's, by legalised election. Nanak, like most such teachers, had left certain written precepts behind him, which, with other similar documents, were compiled by the Gooroo fifth in descent from the founder, into the Adi-Granth, the present religious book of the Sikhs, which, amidst offerings of flowers and jewels, and throngs of martial devotees, lies daily open before the Gooroo on the ground-floor of the great gilded temple of Umritsir.

In its origin, and throughout a considerable period of its progress, the doctrines and disposition of the new community had been essentially peaceable and inoffensive. Its members had sunk their various denominations in the common title of "Sikhs,' or disciples; under which name they began to muster strongly in the Upper Punjab, though there is no reason to suppose that they were formidable either in numbers or capacity; and many of the wonderful events related of this early period

of their career may be reasonably attributed to the afterthoughts of prouder times. At the beginning, however, of the seventeenth century, that famous Gooroo above mentioned as the compiler of the Sikh Koran, was thrown into prison by the Mahometan governor of the province-and in this confinement he died. From the general bearing of the traditions on the subject, it seems clear that nothing had occurred in the demeanour or position of the Sikhs themselves to change the pacific relations hitherto subsisting between the sect and the Imperial government; but that the catastrophe alluded to was caused by the private machinations of a rival zealot, who had been offended by the rejection of his own contributions to the canonical volume. Be this, however, as it may, a rupture immediately took place between the Sikhs and their Mahometan rulers; and the former were henceforth subjected to that persecution, which so proverbially effects the reverse of the purpose intended. It is not to be presumed that the Sikhs had at present acquired any of that power or character which they afterwards displayed, though the seeds of both were doubtless sown at this early period. But the circumstances of the times were against them. The Mogul empire was then in the zenith of that power which for so very short a period was really its own; and although the Rajpoots of Ajmere might already defy the crusading zeal of the Mussulman emperor, yet no such resistance was to be expected from the small and as yet unwarlike community which was silently growing up on the banks of the Ravee. There is no doubt that at this period the doctrines of the Sikhs began to disclose that animosity against other forms of religion by which they were afterwards distinguished. Still it may be inferred, as well from the scanty notice of the facts contained in Mahometan histories, as from that particular decree of Aurungzebe to which we have just referred, that the very weakness of the sect protected them from the violence which they soon after incurred.

Fifth in descent from the murdered priest, and tenth from Nanak, came the celebrated Gooroo Govind; who communicated to his followers the spirit in virtue of which they have since been exalted to antagonism even with British power. Retaining the original tenets of the sect, he practically changed its character, by transforming its distinctive quietism into a traditional spirit of ambition and revenge. To strengthen his ranks, he admitted proselytes of all classes, to a perfect and immediate equality with the tribe of original disciples. To secure the force of unity and consolidation, he added the external characteristics of apparel, to common tenets of faith. The hair and beard of a Sikh were to be unshaven; he was to be dressed in blue, and,

in some shape or other, was always to carry steel about his person. These precepts of their first military chief are still rigidly observed by the fanatic Akalis or immortals—a sect professing to maintain in peculiar purity the true doctrines of Govind. When Govind proclaimed that all Sikhs should be equal, his wisdom foresaw that the level should be no abasing one. To denote at once the martial character, and exalt the general pretensions of his disciples, he assumed for himself and his followers the denomination of Singh-or lion-which had been previously appropriated by the military class of Hindoos -the high-born tribes of Rajpootana. The results of these changes were not long in disclosing themselves. What is chiefly remarkable is, that in little more than a century such provisions as these, suggested by the necessities of a crisis, should have actually communicated to a religious sect recruited from all races, countries, and creeds, the physical characteristics of a distinct nation. Though few in number, and as we shall presently see, holding their local habitation by no title but that of the most recent conquest, the Sikhs were yet found, upon our first relations with them, to exhibit a common national type, as distinguishable as that of any people of India. Taller than the swart Sepoy of the Deccan, or the sturdy Goorkha of the hills; thinner than the robust recruit of Oude or Allahabad; and darker than his immediate neighbours of Cashmere and Cabul; the Sikh presents an outward figure no less peculiar and cognisable, than that military temper and character which generations of persecution and resistance have contributed to form.

It seems probable that Govind took the initiative in his movements, and that he directed them indiscriminately against all around him. But the Mogul was still too strong, and the Gooroo too weak,—and his first struggle ended only in discomfiture. After a brief career of desperate deeds and hopeless enterprises, Govind fell a victim to private assassination, — leaving his disciples enriched by nothing but his spirit and his example. This inheritance, however, was by no means neglected. After the fall of Govind the Sikhs had settled under a new chief named Bandu; who availed himself of the confusion ensuing upon the death of Aurungzebe to lead his followers to actions more resolute than any they had yet attempted. Bursting suddenly from their last retreat, they crossed the Sutlej, defeated the Imperial troops in a pitched battle, and ravaged the country with the most horrible ferocity up to the very waters of the Jumna. Though checked for a moment, they again returned to the charge, and soon displayed their rebellious standards even at the gates of Delhi. The eldest son and successor of Aurung

zebe, who was then reigning as Bahadur Shah, was suddenly summoned from his campaigns in the Deccan and Rajpootana, to oppose the incursions of an obscure community of religionists, who had already mastered the province of Sirhind, and were actually represented as threatening the conquest of Hindostan. The presence of the Emperor, however, now arrested the torrent, and the Sikhs were driven back to their hills; but they again issued from their fastnesses six years later, under the same leader, though with views less of conquest than of revenge. After ravages exceeding in atrocity even those of their previous irruption, they were overpowered by one of the Imperial generals; and in 1716 Bandu, with some hundreds of his followers, was sent in triumph to Delhi, where their offences were expiated by a cruel and ignominious death. The blow was followed up by a most rigorous persecution. The sect of the Sikhs was publicly proscribed, and they were hunted and destroyed like wild beasts of the hills. That they were not exterminated will be evident enough; but such was the merciless character of the proscription, that they appear no more on the stage of Indian history for nearly thirty years.

What is historically important in these details is the change in the political character of the Sikh community. Their first relations with the government of Delhi, as we have seen, were peaceable and unobtrusive; and even when called to order by the lieutenants of Aurungzebe, they were treated more as heretics than as rebels more as infidels than as enemies. But the precepts of Govind fundamentally altered the constitution of their body. By one of those incidents so common in Eastern history, in which a tumultuous assemblage of fanatics or freebooters is suddenly metamorphosed into a compact community, bent on founding a dynasty and a dominion, the Sikhs were transformed from inoffensive religionists into formidable invaders; and we have seen that a design of conquest was openly avowed on the first occasion of their irruptions. Their pretensions demanded even the presence of the Emperor; and not without good reason, for less terrible hordes than that of Bandu had before now subverted thrones in Hindostan. From this period their proceedings receive a notice not previously accorded to them in the pages of the Mahometan historians. What their numbers were we cannot precisely tell; but they could hardly have been great,—since at this moment, when they are making head against the British arms, and when the persecutions of their early days must have been amply compensated by fifty years of triumphant nationality, the whole Sikh population is probably below half a million of souls. Nor is their local habitation at the time of which we