Lehal Library

— HISTORY OF THE SIKHS ?.2 CHAP. I present with them, that He supports them in all their endeavours, and that sooner or later He will confound their enemies for His own glory. This feeling of the Sikh people deserves the attention of the English, both as a civilized nation and as a paramount government. Those who have heard a follower of Guru Gobind declaim -on the destinies of his race, his eye wild with enthusiasm and every muscle quivering with excitement, can understand that spirit which impelled the naked Arab against the mail-clad troops of Rome and Persia, and which led our own chivalrous and believing forefathers through Europe to battle for the cross on the shores of Asia. The Sikhs do not form a numerous sect, yet their strength is not to be estimated by tens of thousands, but by the unity and energy of religious fervour and warlike temperament. They will dare much, and they will endure much, for the mystic 'Khalsa' or commonwealth; they are not discouraged by defeat, and they ardently look forward to the day when Indians and Arabs and Persians and Turks shall all acknowledge the double mission of Nanak and Gobind Singh. The Jats Industrious and highspirited. The characteristics of race are perhaps more deepseated and enduring than those of religion; but, in considering any people, the results of birth and breeding, of descent and instruction, must be held jointly in view. The Jats are known in the north and west of India as industrious and successful tillers of the soil, and as hardy yeomen equally ready to take up arms and to follow the plough. They form, perhaps, the finest rural population in India. On the Jumna their general superiority is apparent, and Bhartpur bears witness to their merits, while on the Sutlej religious reformation and political ascendancy have each served to give spirit to their industry, and activity and purpose to their courage.^ The Rains, the Malis, and some 1 Under the English system of selling the proprietary right when the old freeholder or former purchaser may be unable to pay the land tax, the Jats of Upper India are in villages gradually becoming the possessors of the greater portion of the soil, a fact which the author first heard on the high authority of Mr. Thomason, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces. It is a common saying that if a Jat has fifty rupees, he will rather dig a well or buy a pair of bullocks with the money than spend it on the idle rejoicings of a marriage. ['Socially the landed classes stand high, and of these the Jats, numbering nearly five millions, are the most important. Roughly speaking, one-half of the Jats are Mahomedan, onethird Sikh, and one-sixth Hindu. In distribution they are ubiquitous and are equally divided over the five divisions of the province.' hidian Year Book, 1915.]