"The dynasty which Abdallee, this tenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, founded, having been crowned at Kandahar in the year 1747, met with the same fate that attended the dynasties of all the possessors of this celebrated stone. His son Timour, after a short and inglorious reign, left his throne to his eldest son Humayoon, twelfth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, who fell into the hands of his next brother, Zemaun Shah, by whom he was cruelly blinded, and rendered incapable of reigning. The same fate befell Zemaun Shah, the thirteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor; he in turn fell into the hands of another brother, Mahmoud, who also put out his eyes and succeeded him, but who was in his turn soon conquered by another brother, Shah Shooja, our Afghan ally. This last did not long maintain his position, and, after various vicissitudes, fled to the Punjaub with his brother Zemaun Shah, carrying with them the Koh-i-noor, of which Shah Shooja was the fifteenth and last Mohammedan possessor. His fate is known to all who have heard or read the story of our fatal expedition to Cabul and its consequences, including Shah Shooja's end. Shah Shooja being now dependent on Runjeet Sing, the then sovereign of the Punjaub, for his very existence, soon found himself compelled to yield to the requirements of this powerful and most unscrupulous potentate, who insisted upon the Koh-i-noor being given up to him. The captive prince had no alternative, and yielded, when the great Sikh potentate became the sixteenth possessor of the Koh-i-noor. "At that time no native sovereign in India was so great as Runjeet, and no kingdom seemed more likely to last than the great Sikh monarchy he had founded, but by a curious coincidence the same ill fate that had always followed the possessor of the Koh-i-noor pursued it into this great family. Runjeet himself died, leaving the Koh-i-noor, which he valued at £1,000,000 sterling, to the priests of Jagannath (Juggernath); but it was preserved in the Lahore Treasury. Runjeet was succeeded in 1839 by his son, Kurruck Sing, who was poisoned the following year. Before the funeral ceremonies were completed, his son was purposely killed by a falling archway. A competition for the throne (now vacant) ensued, between the widow of Kurruck Sing and a reputed son of Runjeet Sing, named Shere Sing, who, though born in wedlock, had been stigmatized by his father as illegitimate. Shere Sing, however, succeeded, but his triumph was of a short duration. Near the close of 1843 he was assassinated, and this led to wide-spreading anarchy, culminating in the two successive wars with the British, that of 1846 and 1848-9, ending in the final annexation of the Punjaub by the British, and the acquisition by it of the celebrated diamond, the Koh-i-noor.