1 Shah Shnja installed
2 as King of Afghanistan,
3 8th May 1839.
4 Ranjit Singh at the
5 height of his greatness,
6 but his mind distracted
7 and health broken.
8 The Mahardja is —
9 attacked by paralysis.
10 His partial
11 recovery.
12 Electuary medicine
13 prescribed.
14 Formal investment
15 of Prinee Kharak
16 Singh.
17 492 HISTORY OF THE PANJAB,
18 about 7,500 men, was drawn up in line, at dawn, in front of the town of
19 Kandahar, to the north. In the midst of an extensive plain, a throne was
20 yaised. The Shah’s departure from the palace at sunrise was announced by
21 a royal salute fired from the ramparts of the citadel of the Bélé Hissdr. On
22 his ascending the throne, the park of artillery thundered forth a salute of
23 101 guns. Sir John Keene and Mr. Macnaghten, the envoy and minister
24 on the part of Government of India at the Court of the Shah, offered
25 presents on behalf of the British Government, and then the officers, British
26 and Native, in the king’s service offered nazars. The “Army of the Indus”
27 then marched past in front of the throne.*
28 Ranjit Singh had now apparently reached the summit of his greatness,
29 but, amidst all his glories and thirst for further power, his dissolution was
30 approaching. Harassed in mind and enfeebled in body, he sighed at the
31 recollection of the rich plains across the Indus, and at his being prevented
32 from undertaking an expedition against Shikdrpur and Sindh, which was
33 his most cherished aspiration during the later days of his life. A greater
34 power than his own, for whom he had every ostensible esteem, had set
35 bounds to his ambition on the west, as it had already done on the south
36 and east. While Lord Auckland’s host at Léhore and Amritsar, he felt a
37 difficulty in utterance. His health continued to decline; but he lived to
38 hear of the fall of Kandahar in April.
39 DEATH OF RANJIT SINGH.
40 The Mahardjé was endowed with a vigorous and powerful frame, capable
41 of enduring the toil and hardship to which his aspirations and his genius
42 as a conqueror and leader of men necessarily exposed him. He was gifted
43 with extraordinary powers of endurance, but, had he possessed a constitution of
44 iron, it would have inevitably succumbed to the tremendous strain to which it
45 was subjected. The internal affairs of his kingdom and the reduction of
46 the numerous clans and principalities around him, taxed his mental and
47 physical faculties to the utmost. But what tended above all to bring about
48 his dissolution was his general intemperance and insatiable appetite for
49 strong drink. The Maharaja was afflicted with paralysis in 1834, and so
50 severe was the attack that he never afterwards perfectly regained the power
51 of speech. He made himself understood by signs only, and was unable to
52 utter a single articulate sound.
53 He partially recovered under European treatment, but fell seriously ill
54 again. The physicians of Peshdéwar and Léhore, the astrologers and jogts,
55 were invited to a consultation, presided over by Fakir Aziz-ud-din, physician
56 in ordinary to His Highness. They brought with them various voluminous
57 treatises of Aisculapian art, Homeopathic, Allopathic, Hydropathic, and, we
58 must admit, that works of quackery were not wanting, as will appear evident
59 from the prescription administered. After consultation, they unanimously
60 resolved to dose the patient with a majun, or electuary, of which the
61 principal ingredients were pearls and precious stones. The majun was
62 administered to the Mahardjdé by the Fakir himself, but in less than a
63 fortnight he breathed his last. During one of his rallying intervals the
64 Maharajé convened a meeting of all his principal sarders and officers, and,
65 formally investing Kharak Singh,f his eldest son, with ruling powers, placed
66 * Ghazni was stormed in July 1839, and Kdbul captured, and Shah Shujd seated on its
67 throne, on Sth August, 1839. For subsequent disastrous events in Afghanistan, see Kaye's
68 “ Afghan War,” and other works on Kabul and Afghanistan.
69 ‘t+ According to Smyth, Kharak Singh was brought into the presence of Ranjit Singh only
70 when the old King was on his deathbed. y Singh were both carefully kept at a
71 é ras on his dea He and Sher Singh w
72 SriS at gina Sgn Site FreM Bese influence of the art SEHD Fae? GrRBiPeo te ourt.