to a man who has the temperament and talents for ruling, the position is almost peerless. The Premiership of England is not to be compared with it, as little is the Presidentship of the American Union, where power is curbed on all hands by the focal legislatures of the States. And to a man who joins administrative tact with masterly genius, like Lord Dalhousie, it is no exaggeration to say, that it is doubtful whether the viceroy of our Indian empire is not as mighty a potentate as the emperor of France or the autocrat of Russia. The vigour and abilities of the new Governor-General were soon called forth. Arriving at Calcutta in the first days of 1848, he had hardly been four months in office when he was roused by the revolt of Moolraj into preparation for war. The revolt, spreading from Mooltan northwards, quickly involved the whole States of the Seikh confederacy. A second war in the Punjab was upon us, and the terrible battle of Chillianwallah renewed the bloodshed and anxieties of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. The Governor-General instantly marched for the North-west Provinces, and the vigour of his plans was at length crowned with success by the great artillery victory won by Lord Gough at Goojerat. The army followed up that victory with unsurpassed promptitude and resolution, the beaten remains of the Seikh force were run down in all directions, and the pursuit did not stop until their Afghan allies were driven ignominiously up the gorges of the Khyber Pass. The Governor-General was not less decisive in his measures. The policy of annexation was adopted, not less wisely than boldly. The once famous kingdom of Runjeet Singh was declared at an end, and the Punjab was proclaimed a province of our Indian empire. No tract of country so vast and important had been annexed to the British dominions in the East since, at the beginning of the century, the "North - Western Provinces were first brought under our rule. But much greater difficulties had to be encountered in this new settle 66 ment," and the administrative achievements have been at once much greater and more rapidly accomplished. Of all the governmental experiments made in India, the settlement of the Punjab has been the greatest. Sir Charles Napier did wonders in Scinde. He and Lord Ellenborough (then Governor-General) were both men of no ordinary, and very similar, genius. They both perceived that a merely civil administration, such as prevails within the "Regulation" or old-settled provinces, would never do in a rude region only half-won from war and anarchy. Such a procedure would be like setting Mr Mechi and a band of "high farmers" into the backwoods of America. Pioneering was wanted first; and the vigorous mind and daring spirit of Napier was admirably fitted for such work. But he and his chief carried their prejudices too far. They despised the civil service, and drew almost wholly upon the army; and the result was that they had to work with inadequate instruments,with young officers, zealous and able indeed, but totally inexperienced; so that, as Mr Kaye remarks, the wonder is that the experiment should have been half so successful as it was. Lord Dalhousie was a man of a different stamp. To energies less demonstrative, but not less real, than those of the illustrious men we have named, he joined a greater amount of practical judgment and intellectual calm. He had no prejudices; and hence he was well fitted to learn the lessons taught by former experiments. Ever since the close of the first Seikh war in 1846, a band of British officers had been installed in the Punjab, to assist the Court of Regency established at Lahore to govern the country for the infant son of Runjeet Singh. At the head of this band was Henry Lawrence, then but a captain of the Bengal Artillery, but who now adds the honours of knighthood to a name which will never be forgotten in the administrative annals of India. Lord Dalhousie at once fixed upon him as his prime agent in the settlement of the Punjab. Along with local knowledge and military Lawrence possessed more energy, * Lord Dalhousie landed at Calcutta on the 12th January 1848, and left it on the 6th March 1856. civil experience than most soldiers; for he had been long employed in the Revenue Survey, and as a political officer had attentively watched the systems of government in the Native States. A man of rare energy and ability, sagacious in council, prompt in action, and of so brave a resolution that all difficulties vanished before his unconquerable will, he happily added to these qualities a benevolent spirit, which ever desired to evoke not the fear but the gratitude of the people. But other elements were needed for the right government of so difficult and unsettled a region as the Punjab; and accordingly Lord Dalhousie resolved to form a Board of Administration, consisting of Lawrence and two others. One of these was his brother, John Lawrence, a first-rate civil officer, who had been in charge of the administration of our first territorial acquisition in the Punjab, the Jallundur Doab,-who understood both the revenue and judicial systems of the country-was familiar with native institutions, and thoroughly versed in all those matters of agricultural detail which are the very life of a rural population. The third of the triumvirate was Mr Mansell, likewise of the Bengal civil service, one of the ablest financiers of the country,-of a thoughtful and original turn of mind, but more meditative than energetic. Thus Lord Dalhousie combined both the civil and military services in his Board of Administration, and the same system was pursued in the numerous minor appointments. He had a great task to accomplish, and, breaking from former precedents preferring exclusively neither soldiers nor civilians-he combined in his new administrative corps the best men that were available in both services. The first thing to be done was the pacification of the country. Every peasant had arms, and every chief had a fort. This was inconsistent with a regime of peace. Accordingly, the dismantling of strongholds was vigorously commenced those only being preserved which might be required for military or political pur poses. The edict prohibiting the possession, sale, or manufacture of arms and munitions of war, from the Sutlej to the Indus, was placarded and proclaimed everywhere, the orders being further explained to the headman of every large village; and weapons and munitions of war were seized or surrendered in all directions. (The Trans-Indus and Huzara population were exempted from this prohibition, because without arms they would be at the mercy of plundering hordes, who could at any moment pour down from their mountain fastnesses upon the defenceless villages of the plains and valleys.) A still more formidable matter was the disbanding of the Seikh army. A general muster was called of the soldiery, together with all military retainers of the defunct Seikh government and its chiefs. The men were mustered chiefly at Lahore: there they were paid up and disbanded-the most promising of them being taken into the British service, all those whom we could not admit receiving gratuities and pensions, and the infirm and superannuated being likewise pensioned. All passed off with remarkable quiet and success. "That large_bodies of brave men, once so turbulent and formidable as to overawe their Government and wield the destinies of their country, should lay down their arms, receive their arrears, and retire from an exciting profession to till the ground, without in any place creating a disturbance, is indicative of the effect which had been produced by the British power, of the manly forbearance which characterises the Seikh, and of the satisfaction at the justice of the Government.' This happy change, though sudden, was lasting. The early absorption of the Seikh soldiery into the body of society," says a Report written five years afterwards, "will be a theme for future historians. The fiercer spirits have taken employment under their conquerors, and are serving on the Indus in the far West, and on the Irrawaddy in the far East. But the majority have returned to agriculture in their native Nanjha and Malwa, and anticipate the opening of the new [Baree Doab] canal. The stanch foot-soldier has become the steady cultivator, and the brave officer is now the sturdy village elder."* Such is the pliancy of the Indian character-a character averagely rich and energetic, and more mouldable perhaps than that of any people in the world. Hence the pre-eminent importance of having men of high abilities and practical genius to guide our Indian Administration, men who know what to do, and how to do it; for in India, truly, more than elsewhere, "all things are possible" to a ruler of genius. The feudal system pervaded the Punjab. The fine cavalry of Runjeet Singh was composed entirely of his subordinate feudal chiefs with their military followings,-in return for contributing which, the chiefs held jagheers or lordships over lands, to the occupancy of which they had no claim, but from which they received yearly revenue. When the Seikh kingdom was at an end, and the Seikh army disbanded, there was, of course, no farther use for this feudal system; and as the State now took the payment of the troops into its own hand, it became just and necessary that the jagheers, formerly granted to the chiefs for this purpose, should be resumed by the Government. But the work of resumption required careful investigation and consideration. In many cases a portion of the jagheer belonged to the chief personally, and independently of the portion granted him as payment for his quota of troops. Of these private jagheers the chiefs were left in full possession; and of those to which they had lost claim there was no hasty resumption. Each rent-free tenure was inquired into and reported upon; and not until a thorough investigation had been made, and the justice of the measure clearly ascertained, was any Jagheerdar deprived of his lands. Even then the resumption was generally so ordered as to press with as little severity as possible on the privileged classes, and life-pensions were numerously granted. But still, while the industrial population gained mightily by our *Second Punjab Report, p. 213. innovations, the aristocracy of the Punjab were sufferers by the change. In 1854 we find the effects of the change thus described: "The feudal nobility of Runjeet Singh, the pillars of his State, are tending towards inevitable decay. Their gaudy retinues have disappeared; their city residences are less gay with equipages and visitors; their country seats and villas are comparatively neglected. But the British Government has done all it consistently could to mitigate their reverses, and render their decadence gradual. They receive handsome pensions, or they retain for their lives a moiety of their landed grants. When any of them have been judged to possess hereditary claims, a fair share of their landed fiefs has been guaranteed to them and their posterity in perpetuity. They are treated with considerate respect by the servants of the Government; they swell public processions, and attend at ceremonial durbars. The sons of this nobility and of the gentry generally are seeking Government employ, and acquiring a liberal education."+ Such a decline was inevitable: we could not elevate the many without depressing the few. The Court of Runjeet Singh was a good specimen of Oriental splendour, and entailed a heavy burden upon his British successors in the sovereignty. Not only were there the fair inmates of an unusually wellstocked harem to provide for, and their attendants of both sexes, but also the office-bearers of the Court chamberlains, mace-bearers, soothsayers, physicians, savans, musicians, and men-in-waiting-were all borne on the pension-rolls of the British state. And thus, although everything like splendour vanished, the multitude which had surrounded, graced, or supported the throne of Runjeet Singh and his successors, continued to exist in substantial comfort. So did another, but very different section of the community-the priestly classes. The Seikh shrines and holy places were respected, and liberality was extended to all religious charac ters, even to mendicant friars and "These people village ascetics. have been allowed by thousands to + Ibid. p. 12 retain their petty landed grants on a life-tenure. There is hardly a village mosque, or a rustic temple, or a shaded tomb, of which the service is not supported by a few fields of rentfree cultivation. Those classes, although they will not become extinct, will yet greatly fall below their present numbers when the existing generation shall have passed away. In the mean time they are kept contented, and their indirect influence on the mass of the population is enlisted on the side of the Government." The Seikh faith and ecclesiastical polity, we are told, is rapidly going where the Seikh political ascendancy has already gone; but we doubt if this be for the better, for the deserters from the gentle creed of Nanuk merely rejoin the ranks of Hindooism whence they originally came. The policeman is a necessary accompaniment of peaceful civilisation, albeit he may be armed at times with something more formidable than a wooden truncheon. One of the very first steps, accordingly, taken by the Governor-General after the annexation of the Punjab, was the establishment of an armed police force, foot and horse, alike for the protection of the western frontiers, and for the preservation of internal peace. The village police were likewise appointed; civil and criminal courts were established; and during the first year no less than 8000 convicts were lodged in custody. But there were desperate classes in the community, and the late wars and anarchy had swelled their numbers. The Seikhs had risen to eminence and founded their empire by means of predatory warfare, waged not only by the general confederacy, but more frequently by a few families combining together to make raids and acquire jagheers on their own account. Among such a population gang-robbery (Dacoitee) was looked upon as not dishonourable to those who practised it. The horrible crime of Thuggee had likewise found its way into the country. It was not of native growth, but was imported across the Sutlej from Hindoostan, by a ruffian retainer of one of the Seikh robberchiefs, about the time when Runjeet Singh was rising into eminence. The *Second Punjab Report, p. 213. first Thug initiated his sons and relatives, and thus the crime ramified and descended from one generation to another, sometimes favoured, sometimes persecuted by provincial governors. Upon the disorganisation of the Seikh polity and the wars of 1846 and 1848, Thuggee acquired a further development. It is ascertained, that between the years 1832 and 1852, 1384 murders of this kind were committed; and in the troubled years from 1845 to 1849, the annual average exceeded 100. The last year the crime had any chance of making head was 1852, when the number of murders was 35; next year only one murder of this kind was reported, and now the crime appears to be extinct. It is worthy of note, that in the Punjab this criminal fraternity were not so dangerous as their brethren of central India. "They have none of the subtle sagacity, the insidious perseverance, the religious faith, the dark superstition, the sacred ceremonies, the peculiar dialect, the mysterious bond of union, which so terribly distinguish the Indian Thugs. They are merely an organised body of highwaymen and murderers, rude, ferocious, and desperate.” † The members chiefly belonged to the outcast Muzubee or Sweeper caste of the Seikhs, a ferocious and misanthropic class, fortunately not numbering above 5000 for the whole Punjab. This caste have been placed under surveillance, a thousand of them were also organised into an industrial body, as labourers on the roads; and, bad as they are by nature, with the characteristic pliancy of the Indian race, they have shown themselves not irreclaimable. The physical features of the Punjab presented many obstacles to the suppression of Thuggee, Dacoitee, and other forms of systematic outrage and crime. And in order to show this, as well as to exhibit the need there was for those public works, especially roads and canals, now executing in the Punjab, it may be well to give a slight sketch of the physical aspect of the country. In superficial area the Punjab resembles a vast triangle, 300 miles in greatest breadth, and 350 in greatest First Punjab Report, p. 58. length, with its base resting on the Himalayas, and its apex pointing southwards, and formed at the spot where the Five Rivers mingle their waters, and roll down in one mighty flood to the Indian Ocean. The face of the Punjab, or level region intersected by these five rivers, presents every variety of aspect, from the most luxuriant cultivation to the most sandy deserts and the wildest prairies of grass and brushwood. A traveller passing along the highway which traverses the northern tracts, would imagine the Punjab to be the garden of India; again returning by the road which intersects the central districts, he would suppose it to be a country little better than a wilderness. Here, as generally throughout the East, it is the presence or absence of water that occasions this striking diflorence. All along the base of the lower Himalayan range, there stretches a strip of country from fifty to eighty miles broad, watered by the mountain rivulets, which in their downward course spread wealth and fruitfulness on either side,--enriching with alluvial deposits their Isinks, which are fringed with the finest cultivation, and exhibit a luxmiant fertility unsurpassed in Northern India. These level tracts, och unadorned with trees, and oved by any picturesque feafey are studded with well-peopled same covered with two waySarvests in the year, and are the 4 sturdy, industrious, and Within this zone cerai verdure, which forms the ca Noxier land of the Punjab, ved most of the chief cities, Cynde mester capitals of UmCad babon But the scene we wo pooed southwards. Neks of the five great foutility continues, vid to their immediate 14 the centre of all the duvial regions are weets the eye but was overgrown with w scantily threadand the footprints ... sad there a hamlet ་ ་་་ the wilderness, barbarous popuorigines of the A tribes, who The collect herds of cattle stolen from the The armed police force at first |