1 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS. 3
2 than the Maharajah threw off all restraint, think-
3 » ing it necessary to shew an example of hard drink-
4 ing to his guest.
5 When the army of the Indus was collected at His interview
6 Ferozpore, in 1838, the Governor-General, Lord ren at
7 Auckland, had an interview with him, and the "™?
8 Maharajah crossed the Sutlej a second time, in
9 order to renew the treaty which had been first
10 formed between him and the British in 1809, and
11 strengthened at Roopur in 1831, when Runjeet
12 Singh visited Lord William Bentinck at that place.
13 Seven years had produced a great change in the Altered con-
14 Maharajah. At Roopur, he entered the lists with
15 his own Sirdars and Skimner’s horsemen, in shooting
16 at marks and cutting at tent pegs with his horse at
17 full speed. At Ferozpore, he required assistance
18 in mounting his horse, and his feeble arm could
19 neither wield the sword nor support the match-
20 lock. But pis energetic spirit, still, remained
21 unsubdued : the mental power survived physica]
22 decay. :
23 We have had opportunities of witnessing the Frame of
24 vigorous and powerful frame of this remarkable os
25 man, even when afflicted with paralysis; and his
26 muscular system showed, that, to a mind of no
27 ordinary power had been united a bodily frame
28 capable, before it suffered from disease, of under-
29 going any labour and fatigue.
30 Runjeet Singh knew that the Affghans could
31 not successfully resist the British; and he no doubt
32 rejoiced, in his old age and decay, that he would
33 B2