far off from Lahore to be under any check, that reduced the Rájput and Ghakkar alike to their present state of poverty. Their rule was a military despotism, and their aim to exterminate all classes and families with any pretension to ruling power, and their strongest measures were accordingly levelled against the Ghakkars and all the gentry who shared with them in the management of the country. Accordingly we find them mere exiles or reduced to abject poverty, insomuch that they are now often compelled to become tenants under their former ploughmen. The high roads were universally unsafe. Passing through the limits of different tribes, travellers and caravans had to satisfy the rapacity of each by paying blackmail, or they had to submit to be plundered, outraged, and ill-treated, happy sometimes to escape with life.'
Regarding the Sikh rule in the central districts, Mr. Ibbetson writes: —
'In the centre and south-west of the province the Sikh rule was stronger and more equitable. In the earlier days, indeed, previous to and during the growth of the misls, it was nothing better than an organized system of massacre and pillage. But as the Sikhs grew into a people, and a national spirit developed, self-interest if nothing higher prompted a more moderate government. Still, as Sir Robert Egerton recorded, the Sikh population were soldiers almost to a man, and their one object was to wring from the Hindu and Muhammadan cultivators the utmost farthing that could be extorted without compelling them to abandon their fields. The Rájput especially, who had refused to join the ranks of an organization in which his high caste was disregarded, was the peculiar object of their hatred and oppression. Not to be for them was to be against them, and all who had any pretensions to wealth or influence were mercilessly crushed. They promoted
