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V. Memoir on Sirmur. By the late Captain George Rodney Blane, 

 Engineers, Bengal. Communicated by Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart. 



Read December 6, 1823. 



Boundaries and Divisions qfSirmor. 



SiRMOR is bounded, on the north by Biser, from wliich it is divided by 

 the river Pdber ; on the west by Hindur and the Barah Tukrdi, or twelve 

 districts ; on the south by the Sikh possessions ; and on the east by Gerh- 

 wdl, and the river Jumna. It is divided into Pergunahs, and each Per- 

 gunah into Pattis. The head of a Patti is styled a Siana, and is responsi- 

 ble to the Government for its revenues. Some villages are possessed by 

 the tenure of military service. Ndhen is the capital, once a flourishing 

 town. 



Sketch of the Inhabitants. 



Eternal feuds subsisted between the Sirmeris and the Gerhndlls, under 

 the dominion of their Rajas. Owing to this spirit, and the anarchy which 

 prevailed in the interior, the Gorkhas, as allies of the Sr'magar Raja, made 

 an easy conquest of Sirmdr. Manoher Sinh, their commander, who had 

 been preceded by some smaller detachments, forded the Ta7is, at Keldr 

 Ghat, in December 1804, and in the course of the following year carried 

 his victorious arms to the banks of the Setlej. Devastation and emigration 

 were the consequences of the subjugation of Sirmdr by the Gorkhas. 

 During a peace of ten years, the inhabitants had, in a great measure, re- 

 covered from the effects of the conquest ; and it may be questioned whether 

 their condition, in general, was not better under the severe government of 

 its new masters, than under the misrule, and imperfect police of their native 

 Rajas. These Princes having but an insufficient control over their subjects, 

 each village decided its own disputes, and waged an incessant warfare with 

 its neighbours. 



The terror in which the new government was held, and its comparative 

 vigour, entirely checked these proceedings, and the character of Ranjur 

 T,happa, the Gorkha governor, for mildness and justice, had in some degree 

 reconciled the people to the revolution. But the cruelty and the extortion 

 of the other Gorkha officers (aided by that love of independence, which is 



