LAHORE. 



589 



kingdom. This was the kind of chief that Allard 

 desired to serve : he went therefore to Lahore, and 

 found Runjeet Singh, who was then a rajah. Al- 

 hird met with welcome and employment from the 

 rajah, whose confidence he soon obtained: he placed 

 under Allard a few men, who, being disciplined ac- 

 cording to the military system of France, became 

 the nucleus of the rajah's future army. Next, 

 Allard disciplined a hundred men, who were thus 

 instructed in the duties of military officers. Then 

 he organized a regiment ; then a brigade ; then a 

 division ; his reputation increasing with the num- 

 ber of his soldiers, and the confidence of the rajah 

 keeping pace with the growth of his army. This 

 army soon became the terror of the neighbouring 

 princes, who disputed with Runjeet Singh the so- 

 vereignty of the kingdom of Lahore : they were 

 all in succession besieged in their fortresses, at- 

 tacked in their retreats, beaten in open field, or 

 vanquished in the defiles and fastnesses of their 

 mountains. At length none resisted ; and at the 

 end of a few years Runjeet Singh was the only 

 king of this country. It was the triumph of dis- 

 cipline over the rude warfare of the barbarian, and 

 Allard was loaded with honours and with wealth : 

 he had a palace at Lahore, a crowd of servants and 

 slaves, and a regiment for his escort. He married 

 a princess, a relation of the king, and was finally 

 named commander-in-chief of the armies of the 

 kingdom : he became, next to Runjeet Singh, the 

 most important, powerful, and absolute personage 

 in this extensive country. 



On the 27th of June, 1839, Runjeet Singh died, 

 at Lahore, the capital of the province, in his 

 sixtieth year. The career of this extraordinary 

 chieftain developed the character of a man born to 

 change, or materially influence, the destinies of a 

 vast portion of mankind. Proud, restless, ungo- 

 vernable, impatient of restraint, he ruled with 

 despotism over twenty millions of people; and from 

 a licentious love of power, and unbounded ambition, 

 aided by the fertile powers of his mighty genius, 

 he rose from a common thief to be a conqueror of 

 princes. Possessed of a considerable and well- 

 disciplined army, numerous founderies and arsenals, 

 a regular government, and a wealthy exchequer, he 

 became the friend and ally of the British govern- 

 ment in India. Runjeet Singh is represented as 

 having had no education in any branch of learning 

 or science. He could not read or write in any lan- 

 guage; he did not value knowledge for its own 

 sake, but he had the sense and discretion to appre- 

 ciate, and apply for his own advantage, that of 

 others. He was in the habit of hearing papers 

 read in Persian, Punjabee, and Hindoo. He was 

 the chief administrator of justice in his kingdom ; 

 and was easily accessible to any of his subjects. 

 He displayed perspicuity in his appreciation of 

 character; and the power of tracing the motives 

 of others' actions, gave him a command and influ- 

 ence over all who approached him. His observa- 

 tions and remarks were given ordinarily in short, 

 terse, incoherent phrases, or in the shape of inter- 

 rogatories. He had great power of dissimulation; 

 and, under the utmost frankness of manner and 

 even familiarity of intercourse, could veil subtle 

 designs and treachery. In action he was personally 

 brave and collected; but his plans displayed no 

 boldness or adventurous hazard. His fertility in 

 expedients was wonderful. His uniform career and 

 conduct through life prove him to have been selfish, 

 sensual, and licentious in the extreme, regardless 



of all ties of affection, blood, or friendship, in the 

 pursuit of ambition or pleasure. He plundered and 

 reduced to misery, without the slightest feeling of 

 remorse, widows, orphans, and families ; but he 

 was not blood-thirsty, for he has never taken life, 

 even under circumstances of great aggravation. 

 Indeed, his laws prohibit the punishment of death. 

 A criminal sometimes had his nose or his ears cut 

 off, but never his head. It was also not uncom- 

 mon to cut off the hands of criminals ; but in 

 serious cases, and where the culprit had again com- 

 mitted the crime for which he had been once al- 

 ready punished, the tendon Achilles was cut 

 through. With the aid of his confidential officer, 

 general Allard, he brought his army into the finest 

 state of skill and subordination; but his troops 

 still wear the turban. He was attached to the 

 chase ; and had an ardent passion for precious stones 

 and fine horses, to procure which he has often un- 

 dertaken a disproportionate military expedition. 

 His jewels are said to be the richest and finest in 

 the world; and the riches and magnificence of his 

 court and palace, the splendour of his travelling 

 equipage, and of all his equipments, exceeded all 

 that we hear of among oriental princes. His 

 stature was low, and the loss of his left eye from 

 the small-pox took away from his appearance, which, 

 however, was still far from being unprepossessing, 

 for his countenance was full of expression and ani- 

 mation, and set off with a handsome flowing beard, 

 gray, at fifty years of age, arid tapering to a point 

 below his breast. He was latterly so emaciated 

 and weak as to be compelled to adopt a singular 

 method of mounting the tall horses on which he 

 loved to ride ; a man knelt down before him and 

 he threw his leg over his neck, when the man rose 

 with the Maha Rajah mounted on his shoulders. 

 He then approached the horse, and Runjeet Singh 

 putting his right foot in the stirrup, and holding 

 by the mane, threw his left leg over the man's head 

 and the back of the horse into the stirrup on the 

 other side. A portrait of the Maha Rajah is given 

 in Mr Princep's work on the Origin of the Sikh 

 Power, &c. 



Four princesses, his wives, and seven slave girls, 

 were permitted to burn themselves on his funeral 

 pyre. The description of Arvalan's funeral (in 

 Southey's Curse of Kehama), the burning of bis 

 two queens, and the train of female slaves, be- 

 comes, with a very trifling adaptation, the histori- 

 cal record of the real obsequies of the late monarch 

 of Lahore. On the 2d of July his ashes were re- 

 moved towards the sacred Ganges, at Hurdwar. 

 The procession left the palace at about an hour 

 after sunrise, and moved through the city of La- 

 hore in the following order. One squadron of 

 Sikh lancers, one by one, on account of the narrow- 

 ness of the streets, followed by five gold cloth flags 

 carried on foot ; a golden khassah or palkee, con- 

 taining the ashes of the Maha Rajah; the premier, 

 Rajah Dehan Singh, on foot to the left, bearing a 

 peacock feather chowry, and driving away the flies; 

 and on the right Jamahadar Khoossial Singh, also 

 on foot, bearing a golden punkah ; on the left was 

 the Maha Rajah's principal chutry bearer, carrying 

 a golden chutry, and immediately behind came his 

 personal servants, such as dressers, chowry, walla, 

 cup bearer, &c. A little behind came four khas- 

 sahs, containing the ashes of the four ranees burnt 

 with him, followed by a fifth, containing the ashes 

 of the seven slaves also burnt with him, and imme- 

 diately behind marched his favourite horses, covered 



