ROHILCUND. 
11 
and their own numerous predal provocations have 
reduced them. 
Rohilcund forms part of the modern province of 
Delhi; being situated east of the Ganges between the 
twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth degrees of north lati- 
tude, and from 78° to 80° east longitude. The 
Rohillahs were formerly employed in the armies of 
adventurers whose ambition led them to contest against 
the lawful supremacy. They were always ready to 
enlist as mercenaries under any leaderwho would repay 
their services with liberal rewards. They have served 
with the Mahratta forces, when commanded by Holcar 
and the Seindias, having been always avowedly hostile 
to the British government, not because they consider it 
unjust or oppressive, but because under it they can- 
not exercise those propensities to plunder, and those 
habits of refractory violence by which they delight to 
distinguish themselves. They have a repugnance to 
the severe discipline enforced in the Company’s armies, 
and therefore few of them enlist in a service which 
punishes robbery as a crime of the greatest enormity. 
They are generally an idle and dissolute people, 
loving those pursuits to which a dislike of occupation 
naturally inclines, and are consequently disposed to 
plunder whenever they can find the opportunity ; nor 
are their consciences very tender about despatching 
the parties plundered, if it should appear a necessary 
measure of precaution. They will assemble round a 
brave but ferocious chief, and adhere to his fortunes 
with a fidelity and courage worthy of higher motives 
and more exalted aims. However desperate his cir- 
cumstances, they are seldom known to desert or 
