1 Conquest of the Punjab. 93
2 carried back to Lahore was the person of Shah Shuja,
3 whom Fateh Khan had allowed to slip through his
4 fingers.
5 Ranjit Singh was justly enraged at the manner in
6 which he had been duped ; and, by way of vengeance,
7 entered into negotiations with the Governor of Attock,
8 one of the most important posts on the Afghan
9 frontier, and induced him to surrender it to a Sikh
10 force. Fateh Khan immediately set out with his
11 army to recover the fort, leaving his brother Azim
12 Khan in charge of Kashmir. Diw&n Mokham Chand,
13 who had been sent from Lahore to the relief of the
14 Sikh garrison, encountered the wazir at Haidaru, a
15 few miles to the north of Attock, and for the first
16 time in their history the Sikhs had the satisfaction
17 of defeating the troops of the Shah in a pitched
18 battle. Fateh Khan was forced to withdraw to
19 Kabul, and Attock remained in the possession of
20 Ranjit Singh.
21 On the whole, the ruler of Lahore had no reason
22 to be dissatisfied with the results of the Kashmir
23 expedition. The moral effect of his victory over the
24 troops of the Shah was worth even more to him than
25 the fort of Attock, in itself a valuable acquisition ;
26 while the capture of Shah Shuja resulted in his
27 gaining possession of the Koh-i-nur diamond, valued
28 at that time at close on a million sterling. This
29 famous stone, taken originally from the mines of
30 Kollur, was, in 1656, presented by Mir Jumla, at
31 that time Vizier of Golconda,1 to the Emperor Shah
32 1 Mir Jumla, before joining the service of Aurangzeb, had farmed
33 the mines at Kollur and other places.