The Mussalmans of Rajput descent are a fine fighting stock. The best known are the Ranghars of the Eastern Punjab and the Kaim Khanis of Rajputana proper. The handsomest sepoy I met in Mesopotamia was a Ranghar, and he had that jolly, dare-devil look about him which recalls the best traditions of the highwayman.

When the non-military Hindus, most of them unwilling converts, embraced Muhammadanism, it was the custom in choosing their Islamic name to adopt the prefix "Sheikh." Alma Ram became Sheikh Ali, for instance, and Gobind Das Sheikh Zahur-ud-din. But the proud Rajput warriors were unwilling to be classed with these. "We come of a fighting stock," they argued, "like the Pathans. Our history is more glorious than theirs." So they adopted the suffix "Khan," which with the man of genuine Muhammadan ancestry implies Pathan descent. The Chohans, when they became converted, were known to the Rajputs as the Kaim Khanis, or "the firm and unbreakable ones." Every Ranghar, too, was be-khaned, and as a class they have shown a martial spirit equal to the title.

The British officer in the Indian Cavalry swears by the Ranghars. I know cavalry leaders who would unhesitatingly name him if asked in what breed they considered there was the best makings of a sowar. He is born horseman and horsemaster. And he is very much "a man." Even in the Punjab, where there are collected the best fighting stocks in India--that is to say, the best fighting stocks in the East--he is a hero of romance. "You'll find the Ranghar," the Pirrhai tells us,

I had heard that tag long before I met the Ranghar on service, and I wanted to see how his dare-devil, undisciplined past--if indeed it was as dare-devil as it is painted--served him on a campaign. The Ranghar, one knows, is a Rajput by origin and a Muhammadan by faith. His ancestors were brought to see eye to eye with the Mogul--a change of vision due to no priestcraft, but dictated by the sword. It must be remembered that their lands were exposed to the full tide of the Moslem flood. The Rajputs who earned immortality by their defiance of Akbar, the lions of Rajasthan, lived far from Delhi in the shelter of their forests and hills. The vicinity of the Ranghars to the Mogul capital helps to explain their submission; it does not explain the relative virility and vitality of the breed to-day compared with their Hindu Rajput contemporaries. It will be generally admitted, I think, that the average Ranghar or Khaim Khani is a stouter man than the Rajput pure and simple. Why this should be so; why the descendants of the unconverted Rajputs who held by their faith should not produce as hard a breed of men as the Rajputs who were the first to submit to Islam, and that under compulsion, is a mystery unexplained. One does not set much store by converts in the East. They are generally a yielding, submissive crew. But the Ranghar is very decidedly "lord of himself," a man of action, with something of the pagan in him perhaps, but no hidden corners in his mind where sophistry can enter in and corrupt. The best answer I have heard to the Hun Jehadist wile was given by a Ranghar.

It was in the Shabkadr show on the 5th September, 1915, when the Mohmunds had the support of the Afghan Ningrahahis under the notorious Jan Badshah, who came in against us in defence of the Amir. There had been some hot scrapping. Our cavalry were clearing a village out Michni way in the afternoon, and had had heavy casualties in horses and men. The scene was a long, walled compound, from which we had been sniped at for hours. Into this rode half a dozen men of the 1st D.Y.O. Lancers, headed by the Ranghar Jemadar Rukkun-ud-din. The colonel of the regiment, standing up in his stirrups, saw the whole affair from over the wall, and heard the first parley, or rather the Afghans' impudent Jehadist appeal and the Ranghars' answer to it. As the Lancers cantered through the gate three abreast, the head of the Afghan crowd stepped forward, gave them the Muhammadan greeting, and with the confidence of an unassailable argument cried out to them, "We are of the true faith. Ye are of the true faith. Why then do ye fight for unbelieving Kafirs?" For answer Jemadar Rukkun-ud-din drew his revolver and shot the man in the stomach where he stood. In the scrimmage that followed the two parties were evenly matched in respect of numbers. No one gave quarter; in fact, no quarter had been given or taken all day; it is not the Mohmund or the Afghan habit, and they do not understand it. The sowars were mounted, and rode in with their lances; the Afghans were unmounted, but their magazines were full, and they fired a volley at the Lancers as they charged. Two sowars fell wounded, but not mortally. There was pandemonium in the compound for the next forty seconds, the Afghans running round and firing, the Ranghars galloping and swerving to get in their thrust. The lance beat the rifle every time, for the Afghan found the point and the menace of impact, and the plunging horse too unsteadying for accurate aim. In less than a minute they were all borne down.

Some one suggested that in the natural course of events Rukkun-ud-din would receive a reward, but the astute Colonel, said in the hearing of all--

"Reward! What talk is this of reward? What else could a Ranghar do but kill the man who insulted him. It would be a deep shame to have failed."

At the moment the speech was worth more than a decoration. It made the Ranghars feel very Ranghar-like--and that is the best thing that a Ranghar can feel, the best thing for himself and for his regiment. Incidentally the decoration came. One has not to search for pretexts for bestowing honour on men like these.

There was another youngster in that melee who deserved an I.O.M., a lance-duffadar, a lad of twenty. He had been hit in the seat from behind. The colonel heard of it and noticed that the lad was still mounted.

"You are wounded?" he asked.

"Sahib, it is nothing."

"Answer my question. Where were you hit?"

The boy for the first time showed signs of distress.

"Sahib," he said hesitatingly, "it is a shameful thing. These dogs were spitting in every corner. I have been wounded in the back."

He was made to dismount. His saddle was ripped by a bullet and sodden with blood.

"You must go back to the ambulance, young man," his Colonel told him.

"Sahib, I cannot go back in a doolie like a woman."

He was allowed to mount, though it was an extraordinarily nasty wound for the saddle. A weight seemed to be lifted from him when the Colonel explained that to a Ranghar and a cavalryman a wound in the back could only mean one was a good thruster and well in among the enemy when one was hit.