Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/74

 CHAPTER VI

Anarchy at Lahore; Preparations for War

We must now turn to the state of affairs on the North-West Frontier. It has been said that the pages of Gibbon do not contain a chapter more full of horrors than those which were of daily occurrence at the Court of Lahore. After the death of Ranjít Singh, intrigue, debauchery, and riot reigned supreme. Rájás and Ministers alike were massacred in quick succession; while the army of the Khálsa, like the praetorians of Imperial Rome, sold the supreme power, which rested entirely in their hands, to the highest bidder. They had expelled their officers, including two European generals, Avitabile and Court, and transacted all negotiations by means of Pancháyats or representative committees.

Ranjít Singh is described as spending his last days on a bed, scarcely able to speak, but still dictating his orders to his officers. The road from Lahore to the temple at Jawálamúkhi in the Jálandhar Doáb was dotted with hackeries filled with ghee to feed the sacred flame and propitiate the Deity, till one morning in 1839 it was announced that the 'Lion's' spirit had fled to another world.