1 Early Struggles of the Khalsa. 49
2 a contemporary Muhammadan author, the Sikh horse-
3 men were seen riding at full gallop towards their
4 favourite shrine of devotion. They were often slain
5 in making the attempt, and sometimes taken prisoners;
6 but they used, on such occasions, to seek instead of
7 avoiding the crown of martyrdom, and the same
8 authority states that an instance was never known of
9 a Sikh, taken on his way to Amritsar, consenting to
10 abjure his faith." 1
11 In 1747 Nadir Shah was assassinated. The
12 Durani chief, Ahmad Shah Abdali, became master of
13 Afghanistan, and for twenty years the Punjab reeled
14 under the repeated visitations of this redoubtable and
15 relentless warrior. The Sikhs never lost an op-
16 portunity of profiting by the general disorder; and
17 the kingdom of the Punjab sprang from the very
18 causes that laid the empire of the Moghuls in ruins.
19 The conquest, or rather the plundering of India^ —
20 for he conquered only to plunder the better — was
21 the ruling ambition of Ahmad Shah's life. The same
22 year that he ascended the throne, he led his forces
23 across the Indus. In the Punjab he met with
24 little opposition, and the whole province was soon in
25 his power. When, however, he pressed on towards
26 Delhi, he was less successful ; and on the eastern side
27 of the Sutlej he suffered so many reverses that he
28 was obliged to return to his own country to repair his
29 losses. As in the case of Nadir Shah, the Sikhs
30 harassed his retreating army, cutting off stragglers,
31 and securing considerable booty. The Punjab was
32 recovered to the empire, and Mir Mannu, through
33 1 Sketch of the Sikhs, by Lieutenant- Colonel Malcolm, p. 88.
34 (1,841) 4