1849.] Kohistan of the Jullundhur. 383 



croft and Mr. Vigne were produced, and read, after which my friend 

 translated from the works of the last two gentlemen several passages re- 

 lating to the Rajah's family and their reception whilst passing through 

 his jaghir, but when he came to the passage in which Mr. Vigne 

 mentions that the Rajah and his brother had dark complexions, he just 

 reversed the sentence and read out that they were fair ! In an instant 

 the eyes of the Royal brothers sparkled, and they looked at one another 

 apparently much delighted, a fair complexion being considered an indi- 

 cation of royal blood ; nothing pleased them so much as that sentence. 

 However, the Rajah need not have been ashamed of his complexion, for 

 his aristocratic and gentlemanlike manners shewed at once that he was 

 born a prince. His manners were particularly refined and his gestures 

 graceful. He was the first native I had met whose society was agreeable 

 to me. His features were mild and had evidently been handsome. How- 

 ever of late years he had been a great sufferer from a large goitre which 

 disfigured his neck. That frightful disease slowly wasted away his 

 frame and at last killed him, on the 5th January 1848, only a few 

 days after we left him. 



Mr. Moorcroft thus writes of this man's grandfather : — " In the 

 evening I waited upon the rajah at his desire, and found him with his 

 son and grandson in an open building in a garden.* Rajah Sansar Chund 

 is a tall, well formed man, about sixty. His complexion is dark but his 

 features are fine and expressive. His son, Rai Anirudha Singh, has a 

 very handsome face and ruddy complexion, but is remarkably corpulent. 

 He has two sons, one of twelve and the other of five years of age, both 

 darker than himself. Sansar Chund was formerly the most powerful 

 Rajah from the Sutlej to the Indus. All the potentates from the former 

 river to Kashmir were his tributaries, or dependants, and he was ex- 

 tremely wealthy, possessing a revenue of thirty-five lacs of rupees. He is 

 now poor and in danger of being wholly subjected to Runjeet Singh. 

 His misfortunes are mainly owing to himself, and his decline presents a 

 remarkable contrast to the rise of his neighbour, and now paramount 

 lord, Runjeet Singh."f As Mr. Moorcroft paid his visit on the 16th 

 June 1820, the late rajah must have died at the premature age of forty, 



* At Shujanpore Tira, afterwards described. 



f Vide " Moorcroft's travels in Bokhara, Afghanistan," &c, for further inter- 

 esting particulars. 



