The revenues of the Punjab and its dependencies amount to about two and a half crores of rupees annually: the principal item in this sum is derived from Cashmere, which furnishes thirty-six lacs of rupees. I may add, that all the jagheers and revenues of religious persons are included in the net sum I have named. The revenue is collected by arbitrary exactions, at the will of the collector, as in other native governments. They are presumed, at the outset, to be dishonest, and, aware of the fact, rifle the peasant, and are prepared to be rifled in return. The exactions, as regulated by Runjeet himself, are mild, and his late acquisitions about Mooltan are in a most prosperous condition. Cashmere, on the other hand, is described as the very essence of bad government: the people are oppressed, and the Maha Rajah is afraid to trust other but menial servants with that valuable ornament of his crown.
Revenues might be increased.
The revenues of the Punjab might be increased by annexing to it the provinces immediately westward of the Indus, some of which have been subdued by Runjeet Sing; but he has shown, in this instance, his usual foresight and discrimination. Across the Indus, he would encounter a most fanatical people, the Euzoofzyees, who would occupy the time of his army; he contents himself, therefore, with an annual tribute of some horses and rice from Peshawur. Lower down the Indus, he farms the province of Dera Ghazee Khan to the Khan of Bhawulpoor.
Military resources.
The military resources of the Punjab are great: it yields more grain than is sufficient for the consumption of its inhabitants; but the scarcity of population prevents the full measure of its production. Camels, mules, horses, and cattle abound, and all of them, except the cattle, which are small, are of a superior description. The roads, from one extremity of the country to the other, admit of wheeled carriages, except among the mountains: the Indus, and all the other rivers are navigable, though not navigated. They have ferry-boats in abundance, and there are also materials for their further construction; these rivers are frequently passed on skins, but these are more in use among the mountains than the plains.
The paucity of Seiks, in a country ruled and governed by them, is remarkable. The mother earth of the tribe is the “doab,” between the Ravee and Sutlege; but there are few of them to be found thirty miles below Lahore. There are no Seiks westward of the Hydaspes; and to the eastward of Lahore, where they are said to predominate, they do not certainly compose a third of the population. The Punjab, indeed, is a poorly peopled country, in proportion to its fertility, though it is probable that it has increased in population under the present ruler.[27]
CHAP. XIV.
THE CHENAB, OR ACESINES, JOINED BY THE RAVEE, OR HYDRAOTES.
The Chenab described.
The Acesines is the largest of the Punjab rivers, but its size has been exaggerated. Ptolemy informs us that it is fifteen furlongs wide in the upper part of its course; and Arrian states that it surpasses the Nile when it has received the waters of the Punjab falling into the Indus by a mouth of thirty stadia. Alexander warred in the rainy reason, when these rivers are much swollen, and when the inundation had set in for two months. We have already exposed the latter part of this amplification, in confining the Chenab to a breadth of 600 yards, and a depth of twenty feet. There is no perceptible diminution in the size of this stream, from the Sutlege upwards, for that river increases the depth without adding to the breadth; and the Chenab, south of the Ravee, will be found, as I have before described it, only with the shallow soundings of twelve feet. Its banks are so low, that it is in some places spread as much as 1200 yards, and looks as large as the Indus. At Mooltan ferry it was 1000 yards across, and below its junction with the Ravee, above three quarters of a mile; but these are exceptions to the general feature of the stream.
Its banks, &c.