as ballast on which to lay the iron track—the iron made sacred by the martial Guru, and which every true Singh was commanded to wear always in some shape, either as a sword, a small hatchet, or as a bangle. The Sikh now in the railway carriage has the satisfaction of crushing under the wheels the ruins of the cursed city of Sirhind. Towards the close of the reign of his enemy Aurangzeb, Govind Singh remained in peace. He felt it a duty to save all that could be saved of the Sikhs for the time, to recuperate the race, and enable them to emerge more powerful after so much tribulation, as he no doubt saw that the Emperor's bigoted intolerance towards Hindus had weakened the Moghul power. In the meantime he was gaining many disciples, and had given them confidence in fighting. In a letter to the Emperor he wrote, "Beware! I will teach the sparrows to strike the eagle to the ground," an allusion to his inspiring the peasantry with valour and ambition.
