Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/140

132 seriously restricted, and, hardest lot of all! to promise good behaviour in future. The odd thing is that on the whole he kept his word.

We pass to a region very different both ethnographically and geographically. Some chiefs who had been banished from Cutch found refuge in Sind, then, as twenty years later, ruled by the Amírs. These princes were not sorry to have an opportunity of worrying the British in their efforts to obtain order in Cutch. They gave assistance to the fugitives in raising a force of Mianis. At the head of these wild warriors of the desert the exiles marched back announcing with commendable brevity the object of their enterprise. 'We are Girasias,' ran their epistle to the Resident, 'if you agree to restore Ráo Bharmal Jí to the throne, you may command us.' The invasion at first was a complete success, but the spirit with which the British troops despatched from the Residency at Bhúj dislodged the insurgents from the stronghold they had captured was caught by the native soldiers of the regency. The invaders were finally expelled and had to make their way as best they could across the Rann to the more hospitable shores of Sind. But it was found necessary to maintain a much stronger garrison in Cutch as a precaution against the evil designs of the Amírs.

We come now to the far more formidable complications on the North-Western frontier, where the rumoured distresses of the government in Burma, and the confident anticipation of the immediate