1 138 OBSTINATE RESISTANCE OF MOOSULMANS. A. D. 1823.
2 learned this intelligence, and marched forthwith to attack
3 the Moosulmans. The battle commenced with a furious
4 charge led by Phoola Singh Akalee, a Sikh despe-
5 rado, who was in the habit of rushing forward, with some
6 followers of like zeal, at the commencement of action.
7 The Moosulmans, however, also felt their battle to be a
8 religious one, and met the fanatic Sikhs with corres-
9 ponding zeal and bigotry ; so that the latter were com-
10 pletely destroyed, and their leader slain. Fresh troops
11 were now ordered up by Runjeet Singh, but the
12 Mohummedans stood firm, and resisted every attack
13 until sunset, by which time they had lost nearly half their
14 originally small number, but still maintained their ground
15 on two insulated hills. Runjeet Singh now ordered
16 his cavalry to surround the whole position of the enemy,
17 and directed his Nujeeb and Goorkha battalions, to
18 charge and dislodge them. Twice did these troops
19 advance to the charge, and twice were they repulsed by
20 the determined body opposed to them, nor could the
21 utmost efforts of Runjeet's army dislodge them from
22 their position before nightfall. In the course of the
23 night, the remnant of the band cut their way through the
24 surrounding posts of the Sikhs, and so made good their
25 retreat to the mountains.
26 There were not more of the Moosulmans engaged on
27 this occasion, than between four and five thousand men,
28 and these were mere mountaineers and villagers, who
29 turned out for the Ghazee, that is, to fight the religious
30 battle against the infidel Sikhs. Disciplined professional
31 soldiers there were none amongst them, yet did they
32 resist, for a whole day, the entire army of Runjeki
33 Singh, who had in the field against them not less thau