260 SKETCH OF THE SIKHS, 



witli'themj to be more open and sincere than the Mahrdtas^ and less 

 rude, and savage, than the Afghans. They have, indeed, become, from • 

 mational success^ too proud of their own strength, and too irritable in their 

 tempers, to have patience for the wiies of the former; and -they retain, 

 in spite of their change of manners and religion, too much of the original 

 chara6ler of their Hindu, ancestors, (for the great majority are of the 

 Hindu, race,) to have the constitutional ferocity of the latter. The Sikh 

 soldier is, generally speaking, brave, aftive and cheerful, without pohsh, 

 but neither destitute of sincerity nor attachment; and, if he often appears 

 wanting in humanity, it is not so much to be attributed to his national 

 chara61:er, as to the habits of a hfe, which, from the condition of the so- 

 ciety in which he is born, is generally past in scenes of violence and ra- 

 pine„ 



,. The Sikh merchant, or cultivator of the soil, if he is a Sink, differs 

 little in chara61er from the soldier, except that his occupation renders 

 him less presuming and boisterous. He also wears arms, and is, from 

 education, prompt to use them, whenever his individual interest, or that 

 of the community in which he lives,* requires him to do so. The gene- 



* The old Sikh soldier generally returns to his native village, where bis wealth, courage^ 

 or experience, always obtains hira respect, and sometimes station and consequence. The 

 second ma,rch which the British army made, into the country of the Sikhs, the head-quarters 

 were near a small Tillage, the chief of which, who was upwards of a hundred years of age, had 

 been a soldier, and retained all the look and manner of his former occupation. He came to 

 me and expressed his anxiety to sec Lord Lake. I shewed him the general, who was sitting 

 alone, in his tentj writing. He smiled, and said he knew better: the hero who had over» 

 thrown SiNMA' and HoLKAR, and Imdcanqnered Hindustan^ must be surrounded with at- 

 tendants, and haye plenty of persons to write for him. I assured him that it was Lord Lake, 

 and on his lordship coming to breakfast, I introduced the old Sink, who seeing a number of 

 officers collect round him, was at last satisfied of the truth of what I said, and pleased with the 

 great kindness and condescension witli which he was treated by one whom he justly thought soi 



