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172 almost as bad. Mr. Denzil Ibbetson's Settlement Report on Karnál records: —

'So ended, in 1805, that terrible time called by the people the Sikh hurly-burly, or the Maráthá anarchy. Its horrors still live vividly in the memory of the villagers. The Sikhs never really established their grasp over the country south of Pánipat, and they held what they did possess only as feudatories of the Maráthás. But the whole period was a constant contest between the two powers, and the tract formed a sort of no-man's-land between their territories, and coveted by both and protected by neither, was practically the prey of the strongest and most audacious freebooter of the day. Even as early as 1760, Nadír Sháh had to approach Delhi by way of the Doáb, as owing to the constant passage to and fro of the Maráthá troops, the tract was so desolated that supplies were unprocurable, and forty years later, when we took over the district, it was estimated that more than four-fifths was overgrown by forest, and its inhabitants either removed or exterminated. The royal canal had long dried up, and thick forest had taken the place of cultivation and afforded shelter to thieves, vagabonds and beasts of prey. In 1827, Mr. Archer remarked that only a very few years had elapsed since this part of the country was inhabited wholly by wild beasts. Deserted sites all along the old main road still tell how even the strongest village had to abandon the spot where their fathers had lived for centuries and make to themselves new homes on sites less patent to the eyes of marauding bands. Revenue administration there was none; the cultivator followed the plough with a sword in his hand; the collector came at the head of a regiment, and if he fared well another soon followed him to pick up the crumbs.'

It was at the invitation of his uncle Rájá Bhág