1 78 POPULATION, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS.
2 spontaneous effusion of a kind and liberal over-
3 ture, but is either dictated by the hope of obtain-
4 ing beatitude, or by a sense of the duty of a
5 nation, in a political view, to support its poorer
6 classes.
7 The customs of the Sikhs in respect to suc-
8 cessions to property and the possessions of lands,
9 are described with so much fidelity in a paper
10 translated by Captain Murray, and forming the
11 appendix to Mr. Prinsep's memoir of Runjeet
12 Singh, that the author will be excused for offer-
13 ing a portion of the paper verbatim, in prefe-
14 rence to recording his own crude impressions
15 upon the subject. Continuous field service in
16 isolated districts does not furnish a person with
17 means for the acquisition of knowledge of purely
18 civil usages, and yet a work of this kind would
19 be incomplete without details upon subjects of so
20 much importance.
21 " The rules of succession to landed property
22 in the Sikh states are arbitrary, and are variously
23 modified in accordance to the usages, the inte-
24 rests, and prejudices of different families, nor is
25 it practicable to reduce the anomalous system to
26 a fixed and leading principle. A distinction ob-
27 tains in the Canons of Inheritance between the
28 Manjhee and Malwa Sikhs, or Singhs ; the
29 former are so termed from the tract situated
30 between the Ravee and Beeah rivers, from which