173

In the Indore agency Pithari, Baglee, Karodia,
Patharea, Dhungong, Singhana, Bai, Mayne, Dhawra,
Kanjura, Kaytha, &c., are of this character. :

In the Baroda agency we have the chiefs of Koorwar
 and Mahomedgarh directly dependant upon the
British government, and Basowala, Tuppa, Rajgarh,
Nursingarh, Kilcheepore, Larawat, Pathara, and other
mediatized or guaranteed chiefs,
Protected Sikh States.*
The group of principalities styled the Protected Sikh
States, intervening between Delhi and the Punjab, were
snatched by the British from the jaws of Ranjit Singh, when
he threatened to devour all his neighbours. They remembered
their deliverers, who in turn were menaced with destruction at
the outburst of the mutinies in 1857, and were among the
very first to appear in arms on the British side against the
mutineers. They declared that their swords should be drawn
for that power under whose wing they had nestled for fifty years.
In the chronicles of feudal chivalry there is not a brighter
example of fidelity on the part of feudatories towards their
liege, than that exhibited by some of these States—Pattiala,
Jhind, and Nabba—towards the British suzerain in the darkest
days of 1857. Ties, destined doubtless to be indissoluble,
were then formed between them. Subsequently these States
have derived prosperity from the public works, railways and
canals, of the British Government, and have consolidated their
civil administration after the fashion of the Punjab territory,
with which their own territories are so greatly intermingled.
They maintain military forces adequate but not excessive,
~omposed of those martial elements in which the valley of the

* India in 4880. 1. BQ. of sen.