1 HISTORY OF THE SIKIIS. 275
2 CHAPTER XII.
3 THE BRITISH GARRISON AT LAHORE.
4 Tue Natives of India, using the words in their Valour of
5 British troops
6 most extensive sense, have always admitted ‘the universally
7 . ‘ allowed in the
8 indomitable valour of the British arms. They cast.
9 surmount obstacles and overcome difficulties which
10 are ordinarily deemed impracticable by oriental na-
11 tions. Rivers, mountains, rugged defiles, offer but
12 a temporary resistance to a British force.
13 Observe the campaign of the army of the Indus. tstances ofit,
14 That river had previously been regarded by the
15 Natives of Hindostan as a natural barrier, beyond
16 which it was unsafe to pass. They had a horror of
17 the bare act of using the water of a stream which
18 they hold in no esteem. Unlike their favorite
19 Ganges, the sluggish waters of which flow, after
20 leaving the mountains at Hurdwar, in a calm and
21 an uninterrupted current to the sea, fertilizing the
22 countries through which they pass, and bearing on
23 their bosom numberless boats freighted with the
24 produce of India as well as foreign articles of trade
25 Pan 7