privilege of wearing this original uniform of a true Sikh. After the defeat and death of Banda, every measure was taken, that an active resentment could suggest, not only to destroy the power, but to extirpate the race, of the Sikhs. An astonishing number of that sect must have fallen, in the last two or three years of the contest with the imperial armies, as the irritated Muhammedans gave them no quarter. After the execution of their chief, a royal edict was issued, ordering all who professed the religion of Nánac to be taken and put to death, wherever found. To give effect to this mandate, a reward was offered for the head of every Sikh; and all Hindús were ordered to shave their hair off, under pain of death. The few Sikhs, that escaped this general execution, fled into the mountains to the N. E. of the Penjáb, where they found a refuge from the rigorous persecution by which their tribe was pursued; while numbers bent before the tempest which they could not resist, and abandoning the outward usages of their religion, satisfied their consciences with the secret practice of its rites. From the defeat and death of Banda till the invasion of India by Nádir Sháh, a period of nearly thirty years, we hear nothing of the Sikhs; but, on the occurrence of that event, they are stated to have fallen upon the peaceable inhabitants of the Penjáb, who sought shelter in the hills, and to have plundered them of that property which they were endeavouring to secure from the rapacity of the Persian invader. Enriched with these spoils, the Sikhs left the hills, and built the fort of Dalewál, on the Rávi, from whence they made predatory incursions, and are stated to have added both to their wealth and reputation, by harassing and plundering the rear of Nádir Sháh's army, which, when it returned to Persia, was encumbered with spoil, and marched, from a contempt of its enemies, with a disregard to all order. The weak state to which the empire of Hindústan was reduced; and the confusion into which the provinces of Lahore and Cábul were thrown, by the death of Nádir; were events of too favourable a nature to the Sikhs to be neglected by that race, who became daily more bold, from their numbers being greatly increased by the union of all those who had taken shelter in the mountains; the readmission into the sect of those who, to save their lives, had abjured, for a period, their usages; and the conversion of a number of proselytes, who hastened to join a standard, under which robbery was made sacred; and to plunder, was to be pious.