1 « <31
2 id Ms
3 make
4 choice of advisers from whom he receives the ablest
5 assistance. The Maharajah is fond of children; Ws.fondnew
6 Ht . i for children.
7 and many of his su-darS* sons are bred up under
8 •his eye, and instructed in riding, and the use of y
9 arms; fry this means they become attached to him,
10 and when able to assume commands, they never
11 fail of succeeding to important ones. With his
12 Usual discrimination, Riinjeet seldom makes choice
13 of a subject unworthy of it, and he has ample
14 opportunity of judging of the capacities of those
15 individuals, who are ultimately appointed to the
16 duties best calculated for ’drawing forth-their
17 talents. It has been already hinted that the
18 Maharajah is fond of llowers; and around Lahore
19 there are various gardens, to each of which there
20 is a house attached, in which he spends some of
21 his leisure hours A novel scene occurred at one of
22 these garden houses in February 1837 A fukeer, ^ er *f
23 who arrived at Lahore, engaged to bury himself
24 for any length of time, shut up in a box, without
25 either food or drink! Ruhjeet disbelieved his
26 assertions, and was determined to put them to
27 proof; for this purpose, the man was shut up in a
28 wooden box, which was placed in a small apartment
29 below the level of the ground ; there was a folding
30 door to this box, which was secured by lock and
31 key. Surrounding this apartment, there was the
32 *• Cdbied into Osborne’s “ Camp arid Court of Runjeet Singh.”
33 q 2
34 w
35 > J •/•■■■ rf”
36 Op- THE SIKHS.
37 as to contend with, ai
38 discernment and judgment enable him to