1 114 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 developed and commerce was practically non-existent.
3 In his judicial capacity the kdrddr exercised extensive
4 powers. All civil disputes and criminal cases came
5 under his jurisdiction. For most offences the punish-
6 ment inflicted took the form of a fine ; and though
7 the money thus collected became State property, it
8 can easily be imagined that the kdrddr found his
9 magisterial duties a source of considerable profit.
10 But the government of Ranjit Singh, though un-
11 doubtedly oppressive, was not altogether unpopular.
12 Whatever its faults, it was a settled government,
13 and that alone was an unwonted luxury in the
14 Punjab. If the people were heavily taxed, they
15 were not taxed out of existence. They had at least
16 a ruler who knew that he could not strengthen him-
17 self by ruining his subjects ; a ruler who, if he took
18 much from them, gave them in return what was well
19 worth the price they paid — internal peace, and secu-
20 rity from foreign invasion.
21 The gifts which nature lavished on Ranjit Singh
22 were of the abstract rather than the concrete order.
23 His strength of character and personal magnetism,
24 the real sources of his greatness, animated a frame
25 which, had it belonged to one less highly endowed,
26 might have been deemed both mean and unprepossess-
27 ing. The most authentic descriptions of him relate
28 to his appearance in later life, when his health was
29 permanently broken. Baron Htigel, who visited
30 Lahore in 1834, thus records his first impression of
31 the Sikh ruler : " Ranjit Singh is now fifty-four years
32 old. The small-pox deprived him when a child of
33 his left eye, whence he gained the surname Kana,