1 180 CHARACTER OF RUNJEET SINGH.
2 be traced or imagined. His uniform conduct and career
3 through life, prove him to be selfish, sensual, and licentious
4 in the extreme; disregardful of all ties of affection, blood,
5 or friendship in the pursuit of ambition, or pleasure ; and
6 profligately greedy — plundering and reducing to misery
7 without the slightest feeling, or remorse, widows, orphans
8 and families possessing claims to consideration and
9 respect, that one wonders should not have been recogniz-
10 ed, even if it were only from policy. In his youth he
11 was lavish in his gifts to favorites, and there was libera-
12 lity in his general dealings, but, as age has come over
13 him, avarice, and the desire of hoarding, have become the
14 ruling passions, and he is approached, even by his confi-
15 dential officers and those in favor, with more apprehen-
16 sion of robbery and exaction from themselves, than of
17 hope to add to their accumulated means through his indul-
18 gence. His temper was in youth excellent, and always
19 under command, but the irritability of an impaired con-
20 stitution frequently now overpowers him, and he has been
21 known to break out into fits of passion, and to descend to
22 use personal violence towards the objects of his rage ;
23 but, withal, there is no ferocity in his disposition, and he
24 has never taken life, even under circumstances of aggra-
25 vated offence.
26 His stature is low, and the loss of an eye from the
27 small pox takes away much from his appearance, which
28 however is still far from being unprepossessing, for his
29 countenance is full of expression and animation, and is set
30 off* with a handsome flowing beard, grey at 50 years of
31 age, but tapering to a point below his breast. In his
32 youth he must have had much vigour and activity, but he
33 is now so emaciated, and weak, as to be compelled to