1 254 THE LORDS OF THE HILLS,* —
2 wherever they would find places. After putting- to the
3 sword all the Seiks they met with, the robbers would spend the
4 night carousing' round fires, which they had lit in the Mundee
5 (the forum of the place) and on which they cooked their
6 evening- meal. At dawn of day they would decamp unmolest-
7 ed, taking with them whatever they thought worth the
8 carriage.
9 In 1812, tired, probably, of his unquiet life, and allured
10 by promises of pardon from the Seik authorities at Lahore
11 and Jummoo, Deedoo surrendered himself into the hands of his
12 enemies • but no sooner had he done so than suspecting trea-
13 chery he set upon his guard, and made his escape after killing
14 five men of his escort. He again returned to his wild pre-
15 datory mode of life, and for above a year more, kept the
16 country in so unquiet and disordered a state, that the Seiks
17 found it impossible to govern it or to realise their revenues from
18 it. Thus in the latter end of 1813 or the beginning of 1814,
19 Runjeet Sing found an excuse for displacing the Jemadar,
20 Kooshial Sing, to whom he had committed the charge of the
21 district, and for delivering the country over to his favourites,
22 the Rajpoot brothers. This measure was the result of an in-
23 trigue of the elder brother Goolauboo, who had managed to
24 fill his master's mind with distrust of the Jemadar by des-
25 cribing him as engaged in schemes for establishing himself
26 as the independent chief of the hill-countries. With the
27 aid and support of Misser Dewan Chund, the wily brothers
28 found little difficulty in persuading the too partial Maharajh
29 that in their hands only could the government of their native
30 district be satisfactorily carried on. As preliminary to their
31 formal establishment in the hills, Goolauboo was presented
32 with a jaghire of about forty thousand rupees a year, near
33 Jummoo and Bheembur, which latter place had lately been
34 taken from Sultan Khan, its former chief. Leaving his two
35 younger brothers, the special favourites of Runjeet, to push the