[60] This tract is a strongly defensible country overlooking the principal cities.
[61] The pay of the soldier, as before stated, had been greatly increased.
[62] The bull is sacred amongst the Sikhs, and their Mussulman subjects were prohibited from tasting the holy flesh.
RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY—OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFECTS LIKELY TO BE PRODUCED THEREBY—CONCLUSION.
The restrictions regarding officers visiting the city of Lahore being removed, we hastened to take advantage of this liberty. The streets and bazaars were so thronged with inhabitants, and the recently disbanded soldiery, that it was exceedingly difficult to force a path on horseback, and an elephant was found to be the most advantageous mode of travelling. A brigade of our native infantry were cantoned in the Badshahee mosque, a large, half-dismantled building, which had stood the test of a good many pieces of artillery during the late effervescences in Lahore. The walls which enclose it were speckled with the prints of grape-shot and bullets, and the angry passions of men had left their marks on every portion of the once sacred edifice. The mosque afforded a strong military position, and Allah's mansion promised a commodious quarter for Christian, Mahommedan, and Hindoo.
The gardens, amidst this general revolution, had not shared the same fate, or had been more easily restored, for the flowers and shrubs were flourishing and exhaling fragrance around, nourished, perhaps, by the gory manure which had been lavishly spread on the parterres.
Adjoining these gardens, was the tomb of the old Lion of Lahore—Runjeet Singh—as yet unfinished, but a humble monument to the memory of such a chief. The Sikh nation, since Runjeet's death, had been too busily employed in slaughtering each other to afford leisure for national testimonies to the founder of their dynasty; but that chieftain can dispense with monumental records to hand his name to posterity. History will not neglect him.