1 242 THE LORDS OF THE HILLS J —
2 their neighbours, burnt their houses, carried off their cattle and
3 murdered all those that fell into their hands. Such treatment
4 roused the Bhows to inflict a heavy retaliation. Thus no less
5 than seven different times in Drupe Dehu's reign were the Jum-
6 walls' huts, and even those in which the Rajahs themselves resided,
7 burnt to the ground, and the village made a desolate heap of
8 smoking ruins and ashes. It was mostly for this reason that
9 Jummoo was so thinly inhabited before the time of Runjeet Dehu,
10 and that his father and his predecessors considered temporary
11 huts the fittest for their own residence and that of their people.
12 The fort of Bhow was commenced by Goolaub Dehu, in the
13 beginning of Drupe Dehu's reign, and ultimately finished
14 by Rajah Runjeet Dehu, who not only pacified his inimical
15 brethren, but ultimately reduced them to a state of sub-
16 jection.
17 About the year 1743, or a year after his father's death,
18 Rajah Runjeet Dehu commenced a desultory kind of warfare
19 with the lowlands and the hilly tracts on the west, where he
20 took several forts and in a manner conquered the country as
21 far as the present Runjeet Ghur, where he built a temporary
22 mud fort as his boundary to the south. In one or two instances
23 he surprised and plundered the town of Seealkote, and overran
24 the country on both sides of the Chenaub as far as Gujerat.
25 He even attacked the forts of Koolowal, Kotelee, Minore, Beje-
26 wath, Oknoor and Reass, all on the banks or line of the river
27 Chenaub, burnt the villages and left the rest to their fate.
28 He almost put a stop to the communication between Cashmere
29 and Lahore, and his troops or hill rangers often plundered and
30 slew the Kassids and Hurkaras on their way between Lahore
31 or Delhi, and Peshawur and Cabul, &c. He himself and his
32 three brothers were continually and actively engaged in hostilities
33 with the lowland people, and in the year 1745 they mustered
34 a force of about 1,000 matchlocks.
35 In the year 1746, the general consternation and confusion