2m SKETCH OF THE glECHl . 



... It would be difScylt, IC not Itiipra^licable^ to as.eeytdn the amount of tha 

 papulatioji of the .^'M territories^ or eve^tp compute, the number of thet 

 afmies which they could bring ,mtc^._.^^|o^o --They boast that they cai;^ 

 raise more than a hundred tho-usanidfe^^rse; and, if it were possible to as,-* 

 lemble every Sikh horseraaHs this statement might not be an exaggera- 

 tion; bu,t there is^ perhaps,, no chief among them, except Ranjix Sinh, of 

 J^ahore^ that could bring an ef!e6liv8 body of four thousand men into the 

 field: and the force of Ranjit Sinh did not, in 1805, amount to eight 

 thousand, and part of that was under chiefs who had been subdued from 

 a state of independence, and v?hose turbulent minds ill brooked an usurpa- 

 tion which they deemed subversive of the constitution of their common- 

 wealth. His army is now more numerous than- it' was, but it is composed 

 of materials which have no natural cohesion, and the. first serious check 

 which it meets^ will probably cause its dissolution. 



- -:.■ -:•■;■ SECTION III.--^-^^-^^ 



|M M HIIllli»»MMW I H I| . 



XHERE is no branch of this sj^etch which is more curious, and imppr- 

 tmt, oi' Aat offers more difficulties to the inquirer, than the. religion of th^ 

 Sikhs. We meet with a creed of pure deism,- grounded on. the most 

 sublime general truths ^ blended v^ith the belief of all the absurdities of the 

 Hm^/zi mythology, and the fables of Muhammedanism ; for Na'nA0 pro- 

 fessed a desire to refomi?; not t^^ destroy, the-Feligion of the tribe in which 

 he was born ; and, a^uated by the greM and beiievolent design of recon- 

 ciling the jarring faiths of Brahma and Muhammed, he endeavored t© 

 conciliate both Hindus and Moslems to his doarine, by persuading them to 

 rejea those parts of their lespeaive belief and usages, which he contendi- 



