Lehal Library

INTRODUCTORY The original edition of Capt. Cunningham's book m 1849. A second edition was finished in appeared 1851, but, as is explained in the second preface by his brother, this edition did not make its appearance till 1853, after the death of the author. The second edition did not differ materially from the first beyond certain re-arrangements and certain additions to the notes, with the exception of Chapter IX. This chapter, which deals with the events leading up to, and the progress and result of, the first Sikh War, was considerably modified in the second edition. Even in this form the chapter contains many statements of an injudicious nature. Indeed, as the result of certain strictures upon the policy of the Government of India in dealing with Gulab Singh of Jammu, the author was dismissed from his employment in the Political Department by the Honourable East India Company and sent back to regimental duty. These strictures, together with a note upon the subsequent punishment meted out to the author, will be found in their proper place in Chapter IX. To turn to the volume as a whole. The author, as he tells us in his own prefatory note, spent eight years of his service (from 1838 to 1846) in close contact with the Sikhs, and that too during a very important period of their history. His experiences began with the interview between Lord Auckland and Ranjit Singh in 1838 and lasted down to the close of the first Sikh War, when he became. resident in Bhopal. The result of his eight years' residence was to give him a great insight into the history of the Sikhs and to inspire in him a partiality which is only too clearly visible in his handling of the events leading up to the outbreak of hostilities with the British. The whole book bears evidence of most meticulous care, and the voluminous footnotes show; the breadth and variety of the author's study. Chapter I deals with the country and its people. There is a detailed description of the industries of the Punjab and its dependencies, much of which has been rendered archaic by the natural march of events. The ethnological part of this chapter has been carefully