1 200 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 was ably seconded by our old Barakzai acquaintance,
3 Sultan Muhammad Khan, the governor of Kohat.
4 Together they made overtures to the Amir, Dost
5 Muhammad Khan, offering him, as the price of his
6 assistance, the much coveted province of Peshawar, a
7 bribe which the Afghan monarch was only too ready
8 to swallow. By the middle of October, the whole of
9 the north-west, except Attock, was in the hands of
10 Chattar Singh ; and the British officers stationed in
11 Hazara and Peshawar were his prisoners. Communi-
12 cations were opened with Sher Singh at Miiltan, and
13 it was arranged that he should make his way to
14 Gujrat where, on the fall of Attock, he would be
15 joined by his father, and the combined forces would
16 then march on Lahore. At the same time proclama-
17 tions were issued throughout the kingdom urging the
18 disbanded soldiers to join whichever leader they could
19 most quickly reach, and calling upon every true Sikh,
20 in the name of the Guru, to gird up his loins and
21 take part in the holy war which was to free the
22 Khalsa from the oppression of the Feringhis. " Who-
23 ever acts accordingly will obtain grace in this world,
24 and hereafter ; and he who acts otherwise is excluded
25 from the pale of the Sikh faith."1
26 Sher Singh set out from Miiltan on October 9, and
27 so rapid were his movements that his whole force
28 was out of sight before General Whish, who had taken
29 over command from Edwardes, had realized what was
30 happening. Proceeding northwards along the right
31 bank of the Chenab, the Sikh commander, early in
32 November, reached Kamnaggar, where he entrenched
33 1 See A Year on the Punjab Frontier, vol. ii. p. 624.