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1831.]

The Sect and Nation of the Sikhs.

called Baidees. Those called Shiheeds are so denominated from having exhibited particular acts of bravery and devotion in establishing Gooroo Govin's doctrine, relative to the use of the sword. The Nehungs are so called, merely from going naked.

The Sikhs admit converts from all religions. They are directed by the code, written by Nanuk, called the Grunth, to respect the Shaster, and to consider it the Divine law; to reverence and pay adoration to the Ganges, and to other places regarded holy by the Hindoos; also to revere the Cow: but to renounce idolatry. They are directed not to shave their beards or heads, to dress after a particular fashion, and to burn the dead.

*

The attempts of the Singhs to gain dominion were constantly frustrated, until about A.D. 1760, when the Subadar of Sirhind, named Zien Khan, who was a kind of Viceroy of the Mogul Sovereigns in the tract between the Jumna and Beeah rivers, having caused two of the sons of Gooroo Govin to be destroyed, the Sikhs were immediately roused to vengeance; and having assembled in great numbers, succeeded in killing Zien Khan, and routing his forces. After this, the declining power of the Mussulman Government was unable to cope with them, and they established themselves so firmly, that they have continued to the present day increasing their re

sources.

According to the abilities and enterprise of individuals, chiefships, and independent as well as dependent states and communities, were established; and between the Jumna and Sutlug rivers there are at present four Rajahs; and a fifth chief, the Kythul, not inferior to them. But one of his ancestors having been honoured by their holy Gooroo with the appellation of Bhye (or Brother) the family have adopted that, as a distinction, rather than the name of Rajah. The first in rank and wealth is the Patialah Rajah ; the second, Jeendh; the third, Ky.

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thul; the fourth, Naba; the fifth, Munny Majra.

There are also many chiefs, styled Surdars; who have from two lakhs to twenty thousand rupees of annual revenue. These are the Chiefs of Ladwer, Rooper, Thanessur, Maloud, Umballah, Booreah, Ridhor, and others. Many are in a state of subserviency to the superior Chiefs, in the following degrees. Missildar is a landholder, whoobtained possession of some villages, but wanting the aid of a powerful neighbour, attached himself to some chief; and it became their mutual interest to remain combined. But no tribute or stipulation was entered into, nor had the superior anything to do with the internal arrangements of his ally.

Putteedars originated where several relations or friends united to make conquests, with from two hundred to two thousand horsemen, who engaged in the service, under the stipulation of all sharing the spoil, according to their ranks. Thus, when they gained possession of a tract, they first divided it into portions, according to the number of head-officers, or Surdars, whom they intended to establish. Under each of these were placed the horsemen, according to the revenue; some making conquests that yielded to each horseman about two hundred and fifty rupees annually; and others, not more than a hundred and thirty. The chief of the whole had a Surdarree share ; and the others were subservient to him.

Jageerdars are those to whom the chief gave lands out of his own share or possession; consequently resumable at pleasure.

The Sikh customs (for they have no law but the Shaster as to inheritance) are either Bradur-bund, or Choondabund (that is, Brother-bound, or Female-bound) in the division of possessions among sons. If the former has been the rule in the family, an equal division of territory and property between the sons takes place; and their mother or mothers are provided for out of their respective portions,

* Blue cloth, about forty yards, with holes to admit the legs, is fastened round the loins. Being on the spot, Sirkind," where the overthrow took place, I constantly heard Zien Khan mentioned, as I have related; and the Sikhs so abhor the Mussulmans for the destruction of their Gooroo's (or Priest's) sons, that it was a long time actively in practice, and is in a great degree to this day, that, to efface the site of the city and palace (which were very splendid, belonging to the Mogul Viceroy) they ordered every Sikh traveller to take a brick away, at least two miles, as he passed.

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The Sect and Nation of the Sikhs.

which devolve to them again on the decease of the mother.

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When Choonda-bund is adopted, equal divisions are first made according to the number of wives, and then each division is portioned out to the number of sons which each may have. So that one son may obtain as much as half a dozen born of another wife. All the sons establish distinct chiefships, and are entirely independent of each other; for the Sikhs consider it wrong, and out of the question," that one brother should have authority over another. Therefore most of the chiefships would ere this have dwindled into mere Zimeendaries, had not their incessant wars, added to their debaucheries, generally reduced the heirs to one or two. And, if more existed, contentions destroyed some of them, or intrigues prevented the enjoyment of their rights.

The same divisions take place in the shares of horsemen; so that one share is often divided into five or six portions. If there are no sons or grandsons, the widow or widows succeed. The chiefs have generally from three to even five or six wives. But, if the husband regularly adopted an heir, who is held in all respects equal to a son, in this case the widows obtain provisions only. As widows are not allowed to adopt, and succession is not admitted in the female line, the chiefship would, in former times, have been a matter of contention among the neighbouring powers, or would have fallen to the principal chief, if it had been one of the subordinate states. In like manner the component shares of the inferior estates fall to the head, in failure of acknowledged heirs. Indeed a great part of the country between the Jumna and the Sutlug may ere long pass into other hands, from failure of heirs; such is the debauchery of the present chiefs, several of whom have only one son, and others none. The number of widows now in possession shews the fatal effects of the licentious lives of the men, who drink to excess. Some take an ardent spirit prepared by themselves with rose-water, spices, and other ingredients, according to their tastes. Others take bung, and opium: and their soldiers are said to be plentifully supplied with these stimulants, when on any service. By these they are wound up to a pitch of wild blind fury, looking solely to

[Feb.

the attainment of some prize or spoil; beyond which their comprehension seems unable to extend itself.

With respect to the military spirit and bravery of the Sikhs, we must not judge from their conduct during the Goorkah campaign. It required all the moral courage of British soldiers to overcome the chilling influence of the dreary mountain chain, and to sustain vigorous warfare in a scene so disheartening. Among themselves they are certainly not deficient in courage, and often throw away their lives in wanton contentions, though they know that the matter might immediately be settled by reference. The principal occasions of disputes among themselves are, respecting the boundaries of villages, acts of violence, thefts committed by the subjects of one on those of another, claims of inheritance, also respecting provisions for the females of the deceased. There is not yet so much moral and civil knowledge among them, as mutually to respect rights and property. They have all risen and supported themselves by the sword; and, before they came under the protection of the British Government, power constituted right. The introduction of order, and of attention to property and equity, required all the ability of the agent selected for that duty, Sir David Ochterlony; whose accurate and prompt judgment, combined with conciliatory conduct, brought them to a better sense and estimation of observances necessary to the maintenance of internal tranquillity.

The Sikh women, in consequence of their husbands' dissipation and inattention to business, obtain considerable sway, and assume great authority in the management of affairs. They are said to be often faithless to their husbands, and certainly require restraint when widows. This occasions every chief to demand, as a point of honour, authority over his female relatives, and even over his mother, as a check upon their conduct. Hence arises great animosity; and the mother and the son are generally at enmity after the decease of the father, either on account of the transfer of her power to the son's wife, or because he does not allow her sufficient provision, or because he restrains her in her pleasures. The women very rarely drink any kind of spirits, but

1831]

The Sikhs.-Celts of Spain.

are generally addicted to opium; the effect of which, combined with a milk diet, they consider salutary after the age of forty. So much do they suppose that milk counteracts the baneful effects of opium, that a woman has been reported as intending to destroy herself, who took the latter only. And that the use of both together is not injurious, seems to be proved by the many instances of longevity among

the women.

The women's upper deputtah (or dress) is of muslin, or of coarser materials, according to their condition. Their petticoat is of chintz or satin; and both of all colours. The upper wrapper of the men is much like the Scotch plaids. They seldom wear any clothing under it; they tie it round their waists and across their bodies, rolled in all ways, to be out of the way, as occasion may require, for action or for warmth.

It should be stated that, as the Sikhs possess the country as conquerors, they all live as soldiers; and none of the nation act as artizans or labourers in any way they make those whom they subdue work for them. Add to this brief account of the protected Sikh States between the Junna and the Sutlug rivers, over which the British Government assumed authority in 1809-10, that all beyond or to the north-west of the Sutlug is independent, and now governed by Maha Rajah Rungeet Sing, a Sikh chieftain, whose enterprising and warlike spirit gained him the ascendancy to the Indus. He has also taken Cashmere and other States on the mountain frontier, greatly extending his dominions also to the south. Indeed he is now the greatest potentate in Hindostan; and has shown himself wise enough not to oppose the British Government, or to interfere where he had not a good chance of success, or where it might otherwise have been impolitic. His army consists of from sixty to eighty thousand men; more than two-thirds of which are horsemen. He has five regiments of infantry, armed, dressed, and trained in the European Sepoy style. A considerable body of his cavalry is also dressed in British cloth, about three thousand, who act as his body-guard; and their horses are caparisoned with the same, as also all his elephants and camels carrying

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swivel-guns, or mounted to convey dispatches. He has a great force of artillery of all descriptions: this army consists principally of those whom he has subdued; whose chief, if able and worthy to lead them, he generally employs, or else requires him to furnish an effective officer. On such condihe has conquered to continue on their tions he allows most of those whom possessions, calling them to his standard as occasion may require.

MR. URBAN,

Mere, Jan. 30.

man's Magazine contains a letter, THE last number of the Gentledated at Paris, from your correspondCeltic Civilization. I find much inent "W. S. B." on the subject of formation about the Celts and Celtiberians of Spain, in the Générale de l'Espagne," by Depping, Histoire Paris, 1814.

It will be recollected that there were Spain-the Celts and Iberians; and anciently two distinct races of men in that the Celtiberians were a mixture of these two. But whether the Celts Spain, or the reverse, is a problem of Gaul were descended from those of which has never been decidedly solved. The Celtic Academy of Paris argue strongly for the former hypothesis, and Masden, a Spaniard, with others, as forcibly for the latter.

the language of the ancient Celts of That the Basque, or Vascuence, was Spain, and that it was widely spread in the Peninsula, cannot be doubted, other distinct language there; and it since we do not find the traces of any cities, rivers, &c. all over the land; is that which has given names to many as may be seen in the "Alfabeto de piroz, and in Depping's la lengua primitiva," by Erro l'Espagne," &c. Asy Histoire de

With regard to the civilization of
found, by a cool and unbiassed inves-
the Spanish Celts, I think it would be
tigation, that it was much above that
of the "Indians of America" which
ably below that of the Romans.
"W. S. B." alludes to, and consider-

detains of Andalusia passed for the
Strabo says (lib. 3.) that the Tur-
most learned among the Spaniards;
that they knew grammar, had annals
of six thousand years, and poems and
laws in verse. Now, putting aside

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On the Civilization of the Spanish Celts.

the annals of six thousand years with those of Egypt and China, if knowing grammar, and having poems and laws in verse, put the Turdetains above the other Spaniards, it put them above the Celts of Navarre; who, we may conclude, either had not the knowledge of grammar and poetry at all, or had it only in a lower degree.

Phylarcus (Athen. 2.) calls the Iberians “ πλουσιωτάτους των ανθρώTw"-the richest of men-alluding to their mines of the precious metals; from which it seems that they (and we may conclude their neighbours, the Celts) knew how to work those mines and metals, a knowledge that implies a rather high degree of civilization.

But the ancient authors put the knowledge of metallurgy among the Spaniards beyond a doubt. In Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxx., lib. xxxiii., and lib. xxxiv. Diodorus v., and Strabo iii., their manner of working their mines and metals is partly described. They had a method of giving different colours to silver. Their steel was most excellent, and consequently their arms were exceedingly good. (See Martial, lib. x. Epigr. 103). The Romans borrowed the Spanish sword from them, (Tit. Liv. lib. viii. and Polyb. lib. vi.), and it would be no bad weapon to be taken as a pattern by a people of such a warlike genius as the Romans. They struck medals and money, of which as much as two thousand pieces has been found at once. But they might or might not have learnt the art of working metals from the Phoenicians.

The men occupied themselves in the exercises of war, and left tillage to the women; which seems to prove that they were in a rather low state of civilization, and that they did not work their mines very extensively till after the incoming of the Phoenicians: for, if warlike exercises kept them from following agriculture, it most likely kept them from other arts. However, the custom of leaving field labour to the women is found in some parts of Spain even now. Larruga, a Spanish writer, blames it very strongly; observing that, while the women are in the field, many of the men are spending their time in idleness, en las plazas y otras diversiones." Many of the medals represent their agricultural tools.

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They wore woollen and linen clothes.

[Feb.

Their food was simple, consisting partly of nuts and other fruit; and the wine which they drank was bought of trading outcomers: facts which seem to favour the opinion of their rather low civilization.

Their houses were simple but durable. They had a manner of building them which in some parts of Spain is still common. They built the walls with a mixture of earth and brick, or little stones, and then covered them with planks of hard wood. These houses they called hormazos (from the basque horma, a wall), that is, walled houses; perhaps to distinguish them from some dwellings of a meaner kind. Pliny calls them formacei, and thought, erroneously, that the word was derived from the Latin forma. These bricks, and planks of wood, however, involve a knowledge of brick burning, and timber-cutting tools.

They had a code of laws. For capital crimes the culprit was stoned, or thrown from a rock. (Strabo, lib. iii.)

Their amusements were chiefly warlike exercises; one of the chief of which (as appears by their medals and the like) was the bullfight; so that the supposition of its originating from the Roman sports of the amphitheatre is wrong.

Their religion must have been much like that of the Gauls and Britons; rocking stones, cromlechs, and the like, being found in Spain as well as in France and England.

Depping draws some conclusions about the civilization of the Celts of Spain, from the Basque language; which, he observes, is regular, forcible, and harmonious, founded on logic and sound reason; is not a jargon, but a language of which the principles will undergo the most rigorous analysis; and that we may conclude that the Spanish nation attained, at an early time, to a certain degree of civilization. This inference, however, may be false; for the construction of a language does not depend on civilization; the Spaniards were civilized very early indeed, if they were so before they had formed a language.

The basque word for 1000 is milla, from the Latin mille, which seems to indicate that before the incoming of the Romans they had not frequent need to express that number, and that, consequently, they had not much cultivated the mathematical sciences.

1831.] Celts in Spain.-Patriotic Verses by Rev. W. Birch.

There are, it seems, in the Basque, compositions on poetical prose,—probably bard-songs, like Ossian's poems, —and others in metre and rhyme; which seems to confirm the opinion of the existence of Celtic literature.

The state of Roman refinement, as compared with the habits of the Celtiberians, is given by Martial, lib. x. Epigr. 65. An eagle and a dove, a lion and a deer, he says, are not so unlike as were the hardy Spaniard and the soft Roman.

Among the curious monuments of Spain, was once a rocking-stone in the port of Mongia; it was of enormous size, cut in the form of a ship, with masts and sails; and placed on a rock that rose out of the water. A great number of oxen (says Molina, a Spanish writer that has described it) could not derange this heavy mass; and yet a push of the hand would make it rock as easily as a bit of wood swimming on the water. If this could be proved to be of Celtic origin, it would show that they had considerable knowledge of navigation; but in examining subjects connected with the civilization of the ancient Spaniards, it is difficult to decide what is originally Spanish, and what was borrowed from the Phonicians, Greeks, and Romans.

But

It may be questioned whether the ancient inhabitants of Celtic Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, were families of the same nation. The Highlanders and Irish are we know; and so were the Gauls and Britons. the Basque language is very unlike the Welch, and that very different from the Gaëlic. The patronymics of those languages are examples of it; the patronymic of the Gaelic is mac; as Adam, mac Adam; of the Welch ap as Howel, ap Howel: and of the Basque, ez (adopted in Spanish), as Sancho, Sanchez.

I cannot conclude, without observing, that I think M. de Fortia (quoted by your correspondent), a little too loud a praiser of old times, when he lays down his hypothesis of universal falling off from civilization, and states that the ancient languages were superior to one another according to their early or late origin; and that they are all superior to our modern jargons. If by jargons he means French, English, and a few other corrupted dialects, the observation may have some truth in it; but High Dutch

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is not a jargon, and Russian is not a
jargon; because these languages are
self-enriched and consistent, and their
derivative words can be analysed into
simple etymons of their own.
Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

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W. BARNES.

' I KNOW you will not be displeased
to insert the following verses, written
in a truly national spirit, at the time of
the universally tyrannising domination
under Bonaparte, Great Britain alone
excepted from it. They were com-
posed by the late Rev. WALTER BIRCH,
Rector of Stanway, Essex; and spoken
at The Enconia at Oxford, by Mr.
Smith, Demy of Magdalen College, on
Friday, July 6, 1810.
H. B.

Genius, or Muse! or, if thy sacred claim
Be some yet loftier, some diviner name;
Felt in the solemn, soul-ennobling hour,
When Plato reason'd in th' Athenian bower;
Felt in the Pythian and Olympian fane,
The vaulted roof re-echoing Pindar's strain;
Thou, in all climes, where Freedom stands
enshrin'd,

And wakes to mightiest energies the mind,
In the calm classic shade art wont to dwell;
And hallowest oft the Student's nightly ceil
With hovering gleam of orient splendour,
shed

Full on the Poet's, on the Sage's head;
As in these twilight groves,and cloisters hoar,
Thy pure empyreal radiance dawn'd of yore,
On Hooker's brows in lambent glory shone,
Or beam'd angelic grace on Addison.

Sure, now, as in her best and brightest
hours,

Thou sit'st exulting on Oxonia's towers;
Sure, o'er the much-lov'd scene thy guar-
dian eye

Glows, as of old, with sacred ectasy;
And hails the rising years, whilst all around
Peals of applause to Grenville's name re-
sound,

And many a voice, and many a votive lay,
With happiest presage greet this festal day.
Fly hence, Despondence! fly, ye Fears,

away,

[day!"

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