dia
occurred along the right of way, and they changed the dynasties
and religions of the empire, but the plains tell no tales and
show no signs of the events they have witnessed. Everybody who
has read Kipling's stories will be interested in Umballa, although
it is nothing but an important military post and railway junction.
He tells you about it in "Kim," and several of his army stories
are laid there. Sirhind, thirty-five miles beyond, was formerly
one of the most flourishing cities in the Mogul Empire, and for
a radius of several miles around it the earth is covered with
ruins. It was the scene of successive struggles between the Hindus
and the Sikhs for several centuries, and even to this day every
Sikh who passes through Sirhind picks up and carries away a brick,
which he throws into the first river he comes to, in hope that in
time the detested city will utterly disappear from the face of
the earth. Sirhind is the headquarters of American Presbyterian
missionary work in the Punjab, as that part of India is called,
and the headquarters of the largest irrigation system in the
world, which supplies water to more than 6,000,000 acres of land.

Just before reaching Lahore we passed through Amritsar, a city
which is famous for many things, and is the capital of the Sikhs,
a religious sect bound together by the ties of faith and race
and military discipline. They represent a Hindu heresy led by
a reformer named Nanak Shah, who was born at Lahore in 1469 and
preached a reformation against idolatry, caste, demon worship
and other doctrines of the Brahmins. His theories and sermons
are embraced in a volume known as the "Granth," the Sikh Bible,
which teaches the highest standard of morality, purity and courage,
and appeals especially to the nobler northern races of India. His
followers, who were known as Sikhs, were compelled to fight for
their faith, and for that reason were organized upon a military
basis. Their leaders were warlike men, and when the Mogul power
began to decay they struggled with the Afghans for supremacy in
northern India. They have ever since been renowned for their
fighting qualities; have always been loyal to British authority;
for fifty years have furnished bodyguards for the Viceroy of India,
the governors of Bombay, Bengal and other provinces, and so much
confidence is placed in their coolness, courage, honesty, judgment
and tact that they are employed as policemen in all the British
colonies of