It would be difficult, if not impracticable, to ascertain the amount of the population of the Sikh territories, or even to compute the number of the armies which they could bring into action. They boast that they can raise more than a hundred thousand horse: and, if it were possible to assemble every Sikh horseman, this statement might not be an exaggeration: but there is, perhaps, no chief among them, except Ranjít Singh, of Lahore, that could bring an effective body of four thousand men into the field. The force of Ranjít Singh did not, in 1805, amount to eight thousand; and part of that was under chiefs who had been subdued from a state of independence, and whose turbulent minds ill brooked an usurpation which they deemed subversive of the constitution of their commonwealth. His army is now more numerous than it was, but it is composed of materials which have no natural cohesion; and the first serious check which it meets, will probably cause its dissolution. FOOTNOTES: [67] A general estimate of the value of the country possessed by the Sikhs may be formed, when it is stated, that it contains, besides other countries, the whole of the province of Lahore; which, agreeable to Mr. Bernier, produced, in the reign of Aurungzéb, two hundred and forty-six lacks and ninety-five thousand rupees; or two millions, four hundred and sixty-nine thousand, five hundred pounds sterling. [68] This province now forms almost the whole territory of Daulet Ráo Sindíá. [69] With the chiefs of the Sikhs in the Jaléndra Dúáb we are little acquainted. Tárá Singh is the most considerable; but he and the others have been greatly weakened by their constant and increasing internal divisions. [70] Fateh Singh is, like Ranjít Singh, of a Ját family. [71] Jud'h Singh, of Ramgadiá, is of the carpenter cast. [72] The term Gujarát Singh is sometimes given to the inhabitants of this Dúáb, of which the chiefs of Gujarát and Rotás are the principal rulers. [73] The word Khálsá, which has before been explained to mean the state or commonwealth, is supposed, by the Sikhs, to have a mystical meaning, and to imply that superior government, under the protection of which "they live, and to the established rules and laws of which, as fixed by Gúrú Góvind, it is their civil and religious duty to conform." [74] Acálí, derived from Acál, a compound term of _cál_, _death_, and the Sanscrit privative _a_, which means _never-dying_, or _immortal_. It is one of the names of the Divinity; and has, probably, been given to this remarkable class of devotees, from their always exclaiming Acál! Acál! in their devotions. [75] All Singhs do not wear bracelets; but it is indispensable to have steel about their persons, which they generally have in the shape of a knife or dagger. In support of this ordinance they quote the following verses of Gúrú Góvind: