Rajas of the punjab

· 1873 · Public domain (published pre-1930) · archive.org ↗

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5T H E R A J A S OF T H E PU N JAB.

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7it gave more trouble to the English Government than

8any other with Pattiala, and remained a fruitful source

9of jealousy and suspicion for upwards of twenty years.

10This was the case regarding the Harriana and the Bhatti

11districts, conquered respectively from tire Mahrattas and

12the Bhattis in 1803 and 1818.

13After the victory of Dehli in 1803, the British Govern-

14MahrattM.m inent succeeded to all the possessions, of Sindhia north

15of Agra, including the Gangctic Provinces and the Dehli

16territory west of the Jamna. To the north lay the

17States of Pattiala, Kythal, and Jhind, but between them

18and the inhabited portion of Dehli territory, was a strip

19i“ W80fthe of waste land, now known as the Sirsa and Hissar dis

20tricts. This country consists of vast plains covered with

21grass and a scrubby brushwood, while the only elevations

22which break the monotonous level are sand hills, which

23seem to speak of a time when the tract was a wilderness

24of drifting sand. But Bhattiana had once been more

25prosperous than it was in 1803. Just twenty years

26famine of bofore, a, terrible famine had desolated the land ; the

27‘

28mountain streams, to whose water the people trusted for

29their scanty cultivation, had dried u p ; no rain had fallen ■

30and the vast herds of cattle, for which Bhattiana had

31been renowned for many hundred years, died. The

32villages, were deserted, and, to this day, the country has

33not recovered the fatal famine of 1783.

34Sc «S3?,r of The inhabitants of this country were a pastoral race,

35fierce and restless in their habits and impatient of any

36control. They lived for the most part in open villages,

37or wandered about with their flocks in search of pasture.

38A few towns, or rather fortified villages, were scattered

39through the waste, which the Bhatti tribes made their ren

40dezvous on the approach of a common danger. These were