SKETCH OF THE SIKHS. 225 



were completely successful in this expedition ; the Rdjd olJammu ^nO. hi^ 

 Muhammedan allies, having been defeated, and chased with disgrace 

 across the 5a^/e/', fled to their strong halds and fastnesses. - i. ^-J - 



Gu'ru' Go'vind next relates the advance of the son of Dila'wer 

 Khan against him. The obje6l of the Muhammedan chief appears to 

 have been, to surprize Qo'vlnd and his followers at night; hut when that 

 proje6l was defeated, his troops were seized with a panic, and iied from 

 the Sikhs without a contest. The father, enraged at the disgraceful re- 

 treat of his son, colle(5led all his followers, and sent Hosain K^A'N,.^yhcl 

 made successful inroads upon the Sikhs , taking several of their principal 

 forts.* A general a6^ion at last took place, in which the Khdrii after per- 

 forming prodigies of valor, was defeated, and lost his life. Guru' Go'- 

 vind was not present at this battle. " The lord of the earth," he says, 

 «' detained me from this confii<5t, and caused the rain of steel to descend 

 " in another quarter." 



DiLA WER Khan and Rustam Kha'n next marched against the Sikhs^ 

 who appear to have been disheartened at the loss of some of their princi- 

 pal chiefs, and more at the accounts they received of Aurungzeb's rage 

 at their progress, and of his having detached his son to the distri6t of 



* Though the account of this war is given in a style sufficiently inflated for the wars of the 

 demons and angels, yet as Go'vind relates^ that Hosain Kha'n returns a messenger, vvhich 

 one of the principal /^{/ds had sent him with this message to his master, *' Pay down teot 

 *' thousand rupees, or destructicm descends on thy head," we may judge from the demand, 

 and the amount of the contribution, of the nature of this contest, as well as its scale. It was 

 evidently one of those petty provincial wars, which took place in every remote part of the 

 Indian empire, when it was distracted; and, at this period, Aurungzeb was wholly engaged 

 in the Dek'hiny and the northern provinces were couscquciitly neglected, and their goveru- 

 mcots iu a weak and unsettled stale. 



I ii 



