1 104 THE. ARMY OF THE PUNJAUB.
2 eleven days. The Sikhs have, indeed, acquired,
3 from their remarkable pedestrian qualities, the
4 epithet of “iron-legged.”
5 It has been said above that the Sikhs are
6 arrogant and insubordinate; it should be added,
7 that they are less so in the field than in garrison,
8 and it is only reasonable to conclude that even in
9 quarters they would be more tractable were they
10 governed by European officers. Hitherto there
11 has never been at any one time more than twenty
12 Europeans with the entire regular army of seventy
13 thousand men.
14 In addition to the regular and irregular army,
15 the Lahore government has also in its pay a body
16 ofirregular cavalry (to the number of between two
17 and three thousand) called Akalees. They are
18 religious fanatics, who acknowledge no ruler or
19 laws but their own; think nothing of robbery or
20 even murder, should they happen to be in the
21 humour for it—Runjeet Singh himself having on
22 more than one occasion narrowly escaped assas-
23 sination by them. They are, without any exception,
24 the most insolent and worthless race of people
25 under the sun. They move about constantly
26 armed to the teeth, insulting everybody they meet,
27 particularly Europeans, and it is not an uncommon
28 thing to see them riding about with a drawn
29 sword in each hand, two more in their belt, a
30 matchlock at their back, and three or four quoits