1 His interview with
2 the Maharajd,
3 The traveller leaves
4 Lahore,
5 Mr Moore: oft in
6 Cential Asia,
7 Eis lamented death,
8 : rene aah the Mah-
9 aLtE.
10 a chief, at Amritsar,
11 422 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB,
12 praiseworthy objects in view, he passed through the capital of the Sikhs,
13 on his way to Ladd&dkh and Ydrkand, and he was received with much
14 courtesy and attention at the Lahore Court. The Mahardja conversed
15 with him freely on different topics, and gave him access to any quarter of
16 the town, citadel or suburbs which he might desire to see. At his interview
17 with the Maharaja, Mr. Moorcroft presented him with a pair of double-
18 barreled and a pair of three-barreled pistols, a sword, the model of a cannon,
19 white chauri tails, and bags of musk from the mountains, The Mahardjé
20 was much pleased with the pistols, and still more so with the cannon. He
21 had his own horses passed in review before Mr. Moorcroft, who thought some
22 of them splendid animals. Mr. Moorcroft had several interviews with
23 the Mahardja, in all of which the latter conversed freely. The favourite
24 themes were his military and stud arrangements and past exploits, He
25 showed Mr. Moorcroft his two regiments, consisting of Sikhs, Hindostdnis
26 and Gorkhas, which he had had drilled after the model of the Company’s troops.
27 The Mahardja said they had been trained by a naik, a deserter from the
28 Company’s service, Moorcroft describes Ranjit Singh as very communica-
29 tive. On all occasions he conversed with him, with an apparent absence
30 of all reserve, upon a variety of subjects. Mr. Moorcroft recommended to
31 the Mahardja a fixed scale of duties for British merchandise that came into
32 his territories, but the consideration of the question was adjourned siné
33 die. The Maharaja, however, readily consented to his proceeding through
34 Mandi and Kuli to Ladakh, and his passing throngh Kashmir, and appoint-
35 ed an attendant to accompany him to Kuli. On his departure from Léhore,
36 Mr. Moorcroft was presented with an honorary dress of valuable shawls.
37 Mr, Moorcroft descended into the Kdshmir valley by the Pir Panjal
38 mountains and visited Kabul and Bokhdrd. He remained at Bokhara
39 nearly five months and effected the purchase of a number of valuable
40 horses. With these he proposed to return to India, and he crossed the
41 Oxus on his way back, about the 4th or 5th August, 1825. He, however,
42 now determined to go to Memana, where he understood he would probably be
43 able to make important additions to his stock of horses. “ Before I quit
44 Turkistan,” he writes from Bokhardé,“I mean to penetrate into that tract
45 which contains probably the best horses in Asia, but with which all inter-
46 course has been suspended during the last five years. The experiment is
47 full of hazard, but le jew vaut bien la chandelle.” The country visited was
48 highly malarious, and, though forewarned of the.danger of visiting it in an
49 unhealthy season, he relied too implicitly on his European remedies, and
50 his own medical skill, and his life fell a sacrifice to his zeal. He was taken
51 ill with fever at Audkho and died. Myr. Moorcroft was the bearer of a
52 letter from. the Russian Minister, Prince Nesselrode, to Mahardja Ranjit
53 Singh, in which the Emperor of Russia was represented as a benignant
54 sovereign, who sincerely wished other countries prosperity and was parti-
55 cularly the friend and well-wisher of the sovereign who ruled over the Sikhs.
56 ‘The Prince recommended a merchant to the favourable notice of Ranjit
57 Singh, and expressed a desire to establish commercial relations between
58 Russia and the Panjab, assuring the Maharajé that any merchant from the
59 Panjab to his own country would be well received. The bearer of this
60 letter, however, died before it could be delivered to the addressee.
61 During the course of the same year, Mundaji Bhusld, otherwise known
62 as Apa Sahib, whom the bounty of the English had installed at Nagpur,
63 but who was neither a grateful nor a creditable ally, having escaped
64 from the custody of the British authorities, on his way to Allahabad,
65 Sri SatguithpagjkSiked |beetbrappt as a StateNprisdhericlibrahe@ ghnaticam He was