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ON THE SIKHS.
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marriage with the daughter of Sadá Kunwar, who had been left by her husband the regent of the Ghani Misal, whose possessions extended east of Lahore and included Amritsar. He became possessed also of the city of Lahore under a grant from Shah Zemán, the king of Kabúl, on his retreat from the Panjáb. The city, it is true, was not Shálı Zemán's to give, being in the actual occupation of three other Sikh Sirdárs. The grant, however, was held to confer a title and had an influence with the Mohammedans, by whom Lahore was chiefly inhabited. Their ready assistance placed Ranjit in possession of Lahore, important from its situation and extent, and still more from its ancient reputation as the capital of the vice-royalty of the Panjáb.
It would be incompatible with the object of this sketch to follow Ranjit through the steps by which he rose to the supremacy over the rest of the Sikh chiefs, and transformed an ill-defined and precarious combination of independent military leaders into a compact and despotic monarchy. His first great accession was the annexation of the Bhangi Misal, one of the most powerful of the whole, to his own, upon the death of the Sirdar, by the unjustifiable expulsion of the infant chief and his mother-regent. Taking advantage of hostilities with the Rájá of Káhlúr, Sansár Chand, he compelled various Sikh chiefs in the Jalandhar Doáb to yield him allegiance and to pay tribute, being assisted in his operations by the resources of the Ghaní confederacy, under the direction
