dispersed to reappear shortly afterwards in increasing swarms. Ahmad Sháh, who was a very brilliant leader, though he had little talent for organization or administration and quickly lost the provinces he conquered, invaded India year after year, sometimes marching as far south as Delhi, at other times going no further than Lahore or the Sutlej. On each occasion he had to reckon with, the Sikhs, who ever gained greater confidence and power and were forming themselves into confederacies, or misls, in which a number of robber chiefs agreed, after a somewhat democratic and equal fashion, to follow the flag and fight under the general orders of one powerful leader. This organization made them more formidable. The several chiefs built their forts in convenient places and gradually overran the whole plain country of the Punjab, shutting up the Muhammadan governors in their forts at Sirhind, Dinánagar, and Lahore, which last city they twice seized and occupied for some time. They rebuilt the sacred places of Amritsar and refilled the Tank of the Water of Immortality. When the Afghán prince came down, year after year, from the mountains, the Sikhs retired from before him; as he retired they again seized the prey they had temporarily abandoned. The years 1761-62 were the turning-point in Sikh history, and as such require brief notice, for they contain the first stand of the Khálsa against a regular army. Its defeat, although severe, gave it so much confidence that
