The railway journey from Delhi to Lahore is not exciting, although it passes through a section of great historical interest which has been fought over by contending armies and races for more than 3,000 years.  Several of the most important battles in India 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 the East.  You find them everywhere from Tien-Tsin to the Red Sea.  They are men of unusual stature, with fine heads and faces, full beards, serious disposition and military airs.  They are the only professional fighters in the world.  You seldom find them in any other business, and their admirers declare that no Sikh was ever convicted of cowardice or disloyalty.