[59] The country between the rivers Raví and Béyah, and that river and the Satléj. [60] A sect of non-conformist Sikhs, who believe in the Adí-Grant'h of Nánac, but do not conform to the institutions of Gúrú Góvind. They are called Khalása. This word is said, by some, to be from _khális_, _pure_ or _select_, and to mean the purest, or the select: by others, from _khalás_, _free_, and to mean the freed or exempt, alluding to the tribe being exempt from the usages imposed on the other Sikhs. [61] A. D. 1752. [62] The empire of the Mahrátas had, at this proud moment, reached its zenith. The battle of Pánipat'h took place soon afterwards; since which it has rapidly declined. [63] This is a very common usage amongst eastern conquerors. The history of Jénghíz Khán, Taimúr and Nádir Sháh, afford many examples of this mode of treating their vanquished enemies. [64] Foster's Travels, Vol. I. p. 279. [65] All the villages in the Penjáb are walled round; as they are in almost all the countries of India that are exposed to sudden incursions of horse, which this defence can always repel. [66] When the British and Máhráta armies entered the Penjáb, they were both daily joined by discontented petty chiefs of the Sikhs, who offered their aid to the power that would put them in the possession of a village or a fort, from which, agreeably to their statement, they had been unjustly excluded by a father or brother. Holkár encouraged these applications, and used them to his advantage. The British commander abstained from all interference in such disputes. SECTION II. Neither the limits of this sketch, nor the materials from which it is drawn, will admit of my giving a particular or correct account of the countries possessed by the Sikhs, or of their forms of government, manners, and habits: but a cursory view of these subjects may be useful, and may excite and direct that curiosity which it cannot expect to gratify. The country now possessed by the Sikhs, which reaches from latitude 28° 40' to beyond latitude 32° N., and includes all the Penjáb[67], a small part of Multán, and most of that tract of country which lies between the Jumna and the Satléj, is bounded, to the northward and westward, by the territories of the king of Cábul; to the eastward, by the possessions of the mountaineer Rájás of Jammu, Nadón, and Srínagar; and to the southward, by the territories of the English government, and the sandy deserts of Jasalmér and Hánsyá Hisár.