SIGURD 



SILAGE 



447 



merchant. In 1822 she published a descriptive 

 poem on the Traits of the Aborigines of America ; 

 and in 1824 a Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years 

 Since. These were followed by Poca/iontns and 

 other Poems, Lays of the Heart, Tales in Prose and 

 Verse, &c., and Letters to Young Ladies and to 

 Mothers, both of which passed through many 

 editions, in England as well as America. In 1840 

 she visited Europe, and on her return wrote her 

 Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands. She com- 

 piled amusing and instructive books for the young, 

 ami was a constant contributor to magazines and 

 other periodicals of poems, whose subjects, style, 

 and sentiment gave ner the designation of ' the 

 American Hemans.' She died at Hartford, 10th 

 June 1865. See her autobiographical Letters of 

 Life( New York, 1866). 



Sigurd, or SIOFRIED. See NIBELUNGENLIED. 



Siliftn. See JAXARTES. 



Sikhs, a religious sect of Northern India, which 

 became a great military confederacy. The sect 

 was founded by Baba Nanak (born in 1469), who 

 rejected the institution of caste, idolatry, and 

 superstition, preached the existence of One spiritual 

 (1ml, and inculcated a higher moral life. He was 

 followed in the headship of the sect 'Sikhs' 

 means 'followers' or 'disciples' by ten 'gurus' 

 or chief-priests. The third of these excavated the 

 sacred tank at Amritsar ; and his son, Arjnn Mai, 

 built, towards the end of the 16th century, the 

 holy temple, in the tank at Amritsar, which be- 

 came the headquarters of the Sikh religion. The 

 same guru first edited the Adi Granth, the sacred 

 book of the Sikhs. As time went on the adherents 

 of the sect, principally Jats by race, gradually be- 

 coming conscious of their numbers and their grow- 

 ing power, began to adopt something of a military 

 organisation in addition to their religious disci- 

 pline. This end converting them into a powerful 

 military community wax deliberately pursued by 

 the guru Govind Rai ( 1675-1708) ; he adopted the 

 appellative Singh ( or Sing ; better Sitih, ' lion ' ) as a 

 generic family-name for all members of the sect, 

 strengthened the bonds of personal discipline, and 

 revised the sacred book so as to bring it into 

 harmony with the altered aims and position of the 

 Sikhs. 'See INDIA, Vol. VI. p. 107. 



On the downfall of the Mogul power, shortly 

 after the middle of the 18th century, the SiUi- 

 formed themselves into a number o'f tribal am) 

 territorial confederacies, some of which were 

 virtually independent states. Their religious 

 fanaticism wax fanned by a body of devotees, who 

 dedicated themselves to warlike pursuits ; and the 

 Sikhs greatly extended their possessions. It was, 

 however, Ranjit Singh (q.v.), a young and warlike 

 chieftain, who converted the Sikh confederacies 

 into a powerful and formidable military power, by 

 welding the separate confederacies into one organic 

 whole and carrying his arms westwards, north- 

 wards, and southwards. On the east alone he 

 made no conquests ; he had in 1809 concluded a 

 treaty of peace with the British, whose authority 

 reached to the Sutlej, which was the eastern 

 Ixmndary of the Sikh dominions. This agreement 

 Kanjit faithfully kept; but at his death he left an 

 army of 124,000 men, animated by a warlike spirit 

 and inspired by religious enthusiasm a force that 

 hail been thoroughly organised and drilled by 

 French officers on the European system. But there 

 was none amongst his immediate descendants cap- 

 able of taking up the sceptre be let fall, and wield- 

 ing it with the same energy and skill. Amid the 

 anarchy that followed bis death, the soldiers of his 

 armies clamoured to lie led against the forces of the 

 British ; ami accordingly in December 1845 they 

 crossed the Sutlej and invaded British territory. 



Their advance guard was, however, routed by Sir 

 Hugh Gough at Mudki (18th December), though 

 not without heavy loss to the British, ' Fighting 

 Bob ' Sale being amongst the slain. The main 

 body entrenched themselves at Firozshah, 12 miles 

 east of the river ; but their camp was stormed, after 

 two days' desperate fighting, by Sir Hugli Gough 

 and Sir Henry Hardinge (governor-general) on 

 December 21st and 22d. Another Sikh army that 

 crossed the river was defeated and driven back by 

 Sir Harry Smith, at Aliwal (28th January 1846) ; 

 and on 10th February Gough and Hardinge totally 

 crushed and dispersed the Sikh forces at Sobraon. 

 The British at once captured Lahore, and on the 

 9th March following peace was signed lietween the 

 combatant parties, the Sikhs ceding the districts 

 between the rivers Sutlej and Ravi, and subse- 

 quently, in lieu of a money indemnity, Cashmere, 

 the hill -country of Hazara, and some other portions 

 of territory. 



Two years later war broke out again, caused, as 

 the first conflict was, by Sikh fanaticism : two 

 British officers were massacred at Mill tan in April 

 1848. And although Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes 

 attempted to check the movement at its beginning, 

 the war became general. Multan was taken ; but 

 the battle of Chillianwala ( 13th January 1849) was 

 left undecided, in spite of very heavy losses on the 

 British side. At Gujrat, however, on 21st Febru- 

 ary, Gough finally crushed the Sikhs and effectually 

 broke their power. After this the Punjab was 

 annexed to British India. And so successfully was 

 it* government organised and administered by Lord 

 Dalnonsie and John and Henry Lawrence that on 

 the outbreak of the Mutiny, the Sikhs not only 

 refrained from joining the rebel sepoys, but lent 

 very material assistance in quelling that formidable 

 outbreak. The Sikhs still constitute about 6 per 

 cent, of the population of the Punjab ; and there 

 are connected with the Punjab government fifteen 

 protected Sikh states, of which Patiala is the 

 principal. In 1891 the Sikhs numbered 1,907,836. 



Se J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikht (1849); 

 Sir J. Malcolm, Xb-trh of the fiik/m (1812); Trumpp, The 

 Adi Granth (Lond. 1877), and Die Rtliijion der Sikhs 

 ( Leip. 1881 ) ; Gougk and Innes, The Sikhi and the Sikh 

 War (1897). 



Si-kiilllil. a river of China, rises in Yunnan, and 

 Hows east till, just above Canton (q.v.), it turns 

 south and pours its waters into the Chinese Sea. 

 Canton and Hong-kong stand on the eastern arm 

 of its delta, and Macao on the promontory that 

 divides it from this arm, the Canton River. 



Sikk im. a protected state in the north-east of 

 India, bordering on Tibet, Nepal, and Bhotan. 

 Area, 2700 sq. m. ; pop. 30,500, mostly Buddhist 

 Rongs or Lepchas, akin to the Tibetans. The state 

 lies on the southern slopes of the Himalaya*. h;is 

 mountains reaching to 24,000 feet arid mountain- 

 passes at 16,000 feet. Swift torrents flow at the 

 bottom of precipitous ravines ; and valleys and 

 lower slopes are clothed with forest. The raja, 

 who resides at the village of Tumlong, ceded 

 Darjeeling to the British in 1835, having already 

 acknowledged their 'protection' in 1816. The 

 trade with British India was, in 1890 91 exports 

 to India, 10,000, and imports thence, 8215 ; in 

 1897-98, exports, 3292, and imports, 2433. The 

 treaty of 1890 gave Britain exclusive control over 

 its internal and foreign affairs. The district of 

 Darjeeling (q.v. ), which borders on Sikkim state, 

 is often called British Sikkim. 



Sikrol, or SECROLE. See BENARES. 



Silage is the term applied to fodder which has 

 been preserved by the process of Ensilage. Ensil- 

 age is a French word, tracing through the Spanish, 

 from the Lat. finis, Gr. siros, 'a pit,' whence 



