1 160 SECRET HISTORY OF THE LAHORE DURBAR.
2 favour with Pirthee Sing and the Dogra party, not only to
3 save their own lives but also to promote the conspiracy for the
4 murder of Jewahir Sing. The price which Lall Sing paid
5 for his own safety and for ensuring the destruction of his enemy
6 was twenty-five thousand rupees to Pirthee Sing, with pro-
7 mises of more, and some twelve or fifteen thousand rupees
8 distributed among the troops.
9 To complete the history of Rajah Lall Sing up to the pre-
10 sent time, it may be briefly stated, that on the murder of Jewa-
11 hir Sing, he became, by favour of the Ranee, virtually the head
12 of the Government ; — that when the invasion of the British
13 territories was projected, he was formally appointed and instal-
14 led as Wuzeer ; — that he commanded the Seik cavalry during
15 the war on the Sutlej, without winning a reputation for skill
16 or valour; — that having for a time given place to the com-
17 manding influence of Rajah Goolaub Sing, he was on the eleva-
18 tion of that chief to the dignity of an independent sovereign,
19 reinstated in his former office of Wuzeer ; — and finally that
20 being convicted of treachery to the state in privately encourag-
21 ing the Governor of Cashmere to retain possession of that
22 province, when it should have been delivered over to Maharajh
23 Goolaub Sing, he was, in December, 1846, sent a prisoner to
24 Agra, since which nothing has been heard of him beyond the
25 bare fact of his existence.
26 Another of the Ranee's favourites and advisers, but one
27 of her own sex, has figured largely in the history of the Lahore
28 Durbar. This is the celebrated Mungela, the slave-girl, as she
29 is called, although a full grown woman on the wrong side of
30 thirty. This distinguished personage, the confidante and
31 counsellor of royalty, is the daughter of one Peeroo, a poor
32 Hindoo, of the Jeur or water-carrier caste, who, with his wife
33 and family, supported a miserable existence in a lonely cabin, five
34 or six miles from Kangra, by cutting fire- wood and carrying
35 it to the town for sale. This, at all events, wras the os-