Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/27

Rh lady was born of Christian parents, her father, the Rev. Golak Nath, being a pastor of the American Presbyterian Missionary Society. She had, therefore, the advantage of a Christian bringing up, and she was for some years at a large English boarding-school for girls at the hill station of Musoorie. It is probably in part owing to this that the Kunwar Rani is both in speech, in mind, and in manner so thoroughly English ; partly, too, it is no doubt due to her birth, for the natives of the Punjab are both physically and morally of a stronger and more robust type than the inhabitants of more enervating districts, and seem to have more in common with men of Anglo-Saxon race.

This lady married the Kunwar Rajah Harnain Singh, a member of the ruling family of Kapur-thalla, a small principality lying between Lahore and Umballa. The name or title of "Singh" means a lion and denotes Sikh origin, the Sikhs being a warlike race in the Punjab who, about 200 years ago, under the leadership of a religious fanatic, Guru Govind, threw off the yoke of the degenerate Mahomedan rulers and formed themselves into a nation distinguished for their courage, their martial prowess, and their fierce fanaticism. Since their final conquest by the English, fifty years ago, the Sikhs have proved themselves as loyal subjects as they were previously redoubtable foes. They are almost all very