1 252 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS.
2 but to every state in India and its vicinity, from
3 Cape Comorin to Cabul. The protected Sikh
4 states on the left bank of the Sutlej wavered in
5 their allegiance while the contest lasted, but no
6 sooner had the army of the Sutlej crossed the river
7 than confidence was restored, and these states
8 became removed as it were from the frontier into
9 the centre of our provinces. The Sutlej was no
10 longer the boundary line; nor did the.mountain
11 tribes of Soochat, Kooloo, and Mundee continue to
12 dread the Sikhs: they felt that they were now
13 the subjects of a power under whom they could
14 enjoy peaceful possession of their mountain homes.
15 Suddenness of | ‘With regard to the apparent suddenness of the
16 the invasion,
17 commencement of the Sikh campaign, it would
18 seem that the Sikhs had been employed for months
19 bringing their guns across the river and concealing
20 ‘them. The reports long spread about their in-
21 tended invasion of the British territories were not
22 credited, though the news-writers at Lahore con-
23 tinued to furnish almost daily tidings of what
24 transpired in the Durbar; dwelling on the inability
25 of the Ranee and the nominal government, to
26 gontrol the unruly Sikhs, who had come to a full
27 determination to cross the Sutlej. One reason for
28 disbelieving such reports originated in the Sikhs
29 having used the same menace before, in 1843. But
30 since that period the frontier had assumed a very
31 different aspect, and a bridge had even been pre-
32 pared for the purpose of passing over a British
33 force into the Punjab. The Sikhs now wished to