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46 as the chief and leader of each. Six of the Misls occupied the lands in the Punjab proper, i. e. Trans-Sutlej (on the north side of the Sutlej); other six those in the Cis-Sutlej lands (on the south), generally called Malwá.

At the end of the eighteenth century, this system and organization was acting successfully; the Misls had retained their independence, and, when confederated as one brotherhood — called the Khálsa — against a common enemy, had kept them at bay and held their own. At the beginning of the present century, Ranjít Singh appeared on the scene, being himself a leading member of one of the Misls, the Sukarchakia, and through his wife's connexions most weighty and influential with two others, the Rámgarhia and Kunhaya Misls. His aim was eventually to reduce the power and separate action of the Misls, and to organize an improved and well-disciplined combined or Khálsa army, which should be independent of the Misl basis.

He gradually quarrelled with the other Trans-Sutlej Misls and leading families in turn, and attacked and mastered them. He early got possession of Lahore, and then of Amritsar in 1802; but he had not brought the whole Mánjha district — the great nucleus of the Sikh population — under his sway till 1816. During this interval he had at first made some efforts to include also the Cis-Sutlej Misls and their territory. But their chiefs, having been previously defeated by the English and afterwards kindly treated by them,