Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 3.djvu/173

 MOHUR SING. (151)

OHUR SING is a landholder, residing at Burote, in the Meerut district, and belongs to the large and important race called Jats. Jats abound in the Punjab, in the North- estern Provinces, and elsewhere, and have been by some writers considered identical with the Getse of ancient history. All the subdivisions of the tribe, which are numerous, and comprise some princely dynasties, chief among whom is that of the Rajah of Bhurtpoor—point to the country about and beyond Ghuzni, in Afghanistan, as their original seat. They thence migrated to the Punjab, and towards the close of the reign of the Emperor Aurmizebe, settled in large numbers in the North- West Provinces lying between Agra and Jeypoor. The conqueror Timour is said, on good authority, to have identified them with the Tartar races whom he had met in Central Asia.

The distracted nature of the Imperial Government, at the period of their last migration, afforded opportunities to Chooramun their chieftain to wrest several large districts from the local authorities, and to establish an independent state; and the plunder of the royal baggage supplied the means of raising, or at least commencing, the celebrated fortifications of Bhurtpoor, where the capital of the state was fixed. When Sindia was extending and consolidating the Mahratta territory in the North- West Provinces, he was stoutly opposed by the Jats, Avho had raised disciplined troops under a French oflicer, Mons. Listenaux, and a bloody battle was fought near Agra, on the 24th April, 1788, when the Jats were defeated, and retked into Bhurtpoor.

In the war of 1804 against Holkar, the Jats took part with him against the British. Holkar's army was defeated with great loss, and the capture of all its artilleiy, in a battle fought on 13th November, 1804, before the fort of Deeg, which belonged to the Jats. The fort was immediately invested, but the Jats prolonged its defence very bravely for a month, maintaining their honour and reputation as soldiers. The investment of the great fortress of Bhurtpoor followed, and for nearly four months, January to April, 1805, that place held out as no fortified town had