1 90 MARRIAGE OF KHURUK SINGH. A. D. 1812.
2 was equipped in the British service. Colonel Ochter-
3 LONY was accompanied hy the Rajas of Naba, Jheend,
4 and Kythul, and on arriving near Umritsur on the 28th,
5 received the Istuqhal, or meeting of honor, from the
6 Chief of the Sikhs, who had gathered to his court, on
7 this occasion, all his Sirdars, and indeed the whole nation
8 of Sikhs appeared to be assembled to do honor to the
9 nuptials.
10 The ceremony was performed at the residence of
11 Sirdar Jymul Singh in Futehgurh, and, after its
12 conclusion on the Gth of February, the whole party return-
13 ed to Umritsur. SuDA KooNWUR alone was not
14 present; indisposition was assigned as the reason of her
15 non-attendance on the occasion, but her dissatisfaction at
16 the failure of an attempt to procure from Runjeet
17 Singh, her son-in-law, the public acknowledgment dur-
18 ing these ceremonies, of the two boys she had brought
19 up as twins born to her daughter, was generally be-
20 lieved to be the true cause of her absence.
21 Runjeet Singh received Colonel Ochterlony
22 with marked distinction, appointed his principal officers
23 to show him every object worth seeing at Labor, and
24 pressed upon him an invitation to stay and see the festivi-
25 ties of the Hoolee, which would be celebrated in March.
26 The Colonel declined this honor for himself, but the
27 Sikh Chiefs who had come with him gladly accepted it,
28 and the Bhye of Kythul obtained by cunning and intrigue
29 during the orgies, a grant from the Labor Ruler of
30 Goojurawul, on the protected side of the Sutlej. The
31 frank confidence displayed by Runjeet Singh in his
32 present reception of Colonel Ochterlony was much