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204 The Tiwánas had shown so much gallantry during this campaign that the Mahárájá took fifty of them to Lahore as his personal body-guard. They are certainly a most picturesque race, and I well remember the rival Tiwána chiefs, Fateh Sher Khán and Sher Muhammad Khán, at the great Vice-regal Darbár of Lord Lawrence in 1864, at Lahore, as the most splendidly handsome of all the nobles in that historic gathering. The town of Kasúr, about fifty miles south of Lahore, was the head-quarters of a powerful Muhammadan family of Pathán origin, who had successfully held their own against the Sikhs during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and who had joined the cabal against Ranjít Singh when he obtained possession of Lahore in 1800. The Mahárájá attacked them several times, and, in 1807, he marched with all his forces against Kasúr, and drove out Nawáb Kutbuddin, who retired to his estate of Mamdot on the south bank of the Sutlej which is still held by his descendants.

The chivalrous tribe of Ghakkars, who played a conspicuous part in Indian history, and ruled Kashmír for many years, and had fought, not without glory, with invading emperors, was never able to make much head against the Sikhs after the signal defeat of Sultán Mukarab Khán, in 1765, by Sirdár Gujar Singh Bhangi under the walls of Gujrát, which then, with a large part of the Ráwal Pindi, Jehlam and Gujrát districts, was a Ghakkar possession. They were crushed by the exactions of the Mahárájá’s