Akali's & Nihangs
.... a party of Akhalees
(fanatics) on foot stopped and fought us, in some instances
very fiercely. One fine bold ‘Nihung’ beat off
four sowars one after another, and kept them all at bay.
I then went at him myself, fearing that he would kill one
of them. He instantly rushed to meet me like a tiger, closed
with me, yelling ‘Wah Gooroo ji’, and accompanying
each shout with a terrific blow of his tulwar. I guarded
the three or four first , but he pressed so closely to my
horse’s rein that I could not get a fair cut in return.
At length I pressed in my turn upon him so sharply that
he missed his blow, and I caught it from him, and cut him
down with the right, having received no further injury than
a severe cut across the fingers; I never beheld such desperation
and fury in my life. It was not human scarcely... - Twelve
years of a soldiers life in India, William Hodson (1859)
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