1 66 A Short History of the Sikhs.
2 without disappeared, the bonds of unity were
3 snapped, and the limited authority of the general
4 leader rendered him incapable of controlling the
5 unruly sirdars, or allaying the feuds which arose
6 throughout the length and breadth of the Punjab.
7 So thoroughly had the Sikhs become imbued with
8 the militant spirit, that to fight was the very breath
9 of their being ; and rather than allow their swords
10 to rust in their scabbards, they preferred to turn
11 them against one another.
12 In a country partitioned, as was the Punjab, amongst
13 a number of independent chiefs, each of whom
14 maintained a band of followers, armed to the teeth
15 and paid out of the spoils of war, pretexts for
16 quarrelling could not but be abundant, and the
17 Sikh sirdars fought with and plundered one another
18 with all the zest they had formerly displayed in
19 assailing the legions of Holkar and the Shah. It
20 would be tedious to follow the course of the many
21 quarrels which, at the close of the eighteenth century,
22 endangered the dearly purchased independence of the
23 Khalsa. We must, however, briefly refer to those
24 in which the immediate ancestors of Maharaja
25 Ranjit Singh were involved, so that we may under-
26 stand the nature and extent of the difficulties by
27 which, at the commencement of his career, this
28 famous chief, the national hero of the Sikhs, was
29 surrounded.
30 The Sukarchakia misl, to the leadership of which
31 Ranjit Singh succeeded, was founded early in the
32 eighteenth century. It rose to prominence under
33 Maharaja's grandfather, Char rat Singh, a brave Jat