lengthy operation, costing him much in money, officers, and troops, must be briefly noticed, together with the reduction of the Muhammadan tribes of the Punjab, who were quite as fond of fighting and as gallant soldiers as the Sikhs themselves. What they did not possess was the power of organization and combination, for which the Mahárájá was so conspicuous, and which enabled him to subdue separately tribes which united might have successfully resisted him. There was no Mussulman of genius to gather together his co-religionists under the green flag of the Prophet, and to found, in the Northern Punjab, a Muhammadan kingdom to rival and counterbalance the Sikh monarchy of Lahore. A few fanatics like Syad Ahmad Sháh, at the head of heterogeneous assemblies of mountain warriors, gave at times an infinity of trouble, and preached a holy war against Sikhs and infidels; but their fierce enthusiasm burned out as quickly as straw, and they could only destroy and not build up. The victory rested, as it was bound to rest, with the slow-witted, strong and stubborn Sikhs, directed by the persistence of their great Mahárájá, slow, and sure, and irresistible as the rising tide.
This sketch of the Sikhs and their master would give to English readers a very false idea of the Punjab if it allowed them to conceive it as a province chiefly inhabited by a Hindu population among which the unorthodox sect founded by Govind Singh rose to sudden and exceptional importance. The Punjab is to-day, and was in Ranjít Singh's time,
