Bombay and western India, a series of stray papers; . it, and con-struct upon it a palaceand buildings suitablefor his government. Hisreasons for doing so wewill endeavour to pre-sent to the reader. Atfirst sight Eaygarh seemsan out-of-the-way place—a lonely hill; but itm\ist be borne in mindtliat Bombay, with itspopulation of 60,000,had not then the pre-ponderating weight inthe commonwealth ithas since obtained. Aglance at the map showsthat Eaygarh is nearlyequidistant from Bom-bay, Poona, and Moreover, it was only a few miles from Mahad,a shallow seaport, it is true, but a b
Bombay and western India, a series of stray papers; . it, and con-struct upon it a palaceand buildings suitablefor his government. Hisreasons for doing so wewill endeavour to pre-sent to the reader. Atfirst sight Eaygarh seemsan out-of-the-way place—a lonely hill; but itm\ist be borne in mindtliat Bombay, with itspopulation of 60,000,had not then the pre-ponderating weight inthe commonwealth ithas since obtained. Aglance at the map showsthat Eaygarh is nearlyequidistant from Bom-bay, Poona, and Moreover, it was only a few miles from Mahad,a shallow seaport, it is true, but a base of operations whencesupplies were always available, and in communication with thechain of durgs or sea-forts which he had established along thecoast, and to which, should the worst come to the worst—andthis was no doubt among his calculations—^lie could resort. Itmust be borne in mind that the empii-e of India was then ruledfrom Dehli, and that Aurangzeb in person was hurlmg massesof men into the Dekhan to crush the nascent energies of the. r<\ DEFENSnE POSITIONS. 167 ^[arathas, of whom Sivaji was the representative. The first!,reat wave had ah-eady broken, and Daiihitabad, Junnar, Chakan,Ioona, and Siipa liad already fallen a prey to the and Piirandliar might come next (as they did), and thedeluge would be upon him. So he step]ied back, not reluctantlyor cowardly, but as a matter of stratagem. Looking fromllaygarh to the north-east, in the direction of Ioona, the sky-line is bounded by a huge breastwork of natures making, thirtymiles away, scarps 4000 feet above sea-level, crowned by thebastions of Eajgarli and Torna; as long as they remained
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1893
