Their horsemen use swords and spears, and most of them now carry matchlocks, though some still use the bow and arrow; a species of arms, for excellence in the use of which their forefathers were celebrated, and which their descendants appear to abandon with great reluctance.
The education of the Sikhs renders them hardy, and capable of great fatigue; and the condition of the society in which they live, affords constant exercise to that restless spirit of activity and enterprise which their religion has generated. Such a race cannot be epicures: they appear, indeed, generally to despise luxury of diet, and pride themselves in their coarse fare. Their dress is also plain, not unlike that of the Hindús, equally light and divested of ornament. Some of the chiefs wear gold bangles; but this is rare; and the general characteristic of their dress and mode of living, is simplicity.
The principal leaders among the Sikhs affect to be familiar and easy of intercourse with their inferiors, and to despise the pomp and state of the Muhammedan chiefs: but their pride often counteracts this disposition; and they appeared to me to have, in proportion to their rank and consequence, more state, and to maintain equal, if not more, reserve and dignity with their followers, than is usual with the Mahráta chiefs.
It would be difficult, if not impracticable, to ascertain the amount of the population of the Sikh territories, or even to compute the number of the armies which they could bring into action. They boast that they can raise more than a hundred thousand horse: and, if it were possible to assemble every Sikh horseman, this statement might not be an exaggeration: but there is, perhaps, no chief among them, except Ranjít Singh, of Lahore, that could bring an effective body of four thousand men into the field. The force of Ranjít Singh 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 whose turbulent minds ill brooked an usurpation which they deemed subversive of the constitution of their commonwealth. 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] A general estimate of the value of the country possessed by the Sikhs may be formed, when it is stated, that it contains, besides other countries, the whole of the province of Lahore; which, agreeable to Mr. Bernier, produced, in the reign of Aurungzéb, two hundred and forty-six lacks and ninety-five thousand rupees; or two millions, four hundred and sixty-nine thousand, five hundred pounds sterling.
[68] This province now forms almost the whole territory of Daulet Ráo Sindíá.
[69] With the chiefs of the Sikhs in the Jaléndra Dúáb we are little acquainted. Tárá Singh is the most considerable; but he and the others have been greatly weakened by their constant and increasing internal divisions.
[70] Fateh Singh is, like Ranjít Singh, of a Ját family.
[71] Jud'h Singh, of Ramgadiá, is of the carpenter cast.