2-979-705 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Akali of the Sikhs - from a drawing by Marshall Claxton, 1857. 'The important services which the Sikh regiments have rendered our army in India up to the present time invests with peculiar interest the above portrait of their Akali (or Chief), engraved from a Sketch by Marshall Claxton. This interest is increased by the rumour of incipient disaffection in several of the Sikh regiments, owing, it is said, to General Wilson's regulations relative to the plunder of the city of Delhi. The Sikhs, from the time of their great Chief Runjeet Singh downwards, have played an important part in the history of British India; and, from all accounts, are not by any means the barbarous fanatics of former days'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.