CHAPTER VI.
A DARING ATTACK.
It is very probable that the readers of this tale have never even heard of the Beydurs who have some part in it; but their history and position are interesting, and at the risk of a short digression we will endeavour to explain enough of both to help to assure the reader that they are real people, and not mere invention.
The Beydurs, under the name of Veddur, still used by the wilder part of the tribes who inhabit the mountains and forests of south-western India, are what is termed ordinarily one of the aboriginal races, as seen in their native condition in the forests of Travancore and Mysore. They are savages, wearing little or no clothing, cultivating no land, except in isolated instances, and subsisting upon fruits, roots, and the like, and collecting honey, bees-wax, and other forest produce, which they exchange for such articles of clothing and such necessaries as are indispensable. These portions of the tribe are now comparatively few in number, and altogether unimportant. They have been driven at some ancient period from the plains into the mountains of the west, and have not emerged from their original barbarism.
Other portions of the tribe which remained, in the plains of southern India and in Mysore became, in some respects, civilised, and at one time attained a considerable degree of power, which, however, was shattered by the great Hindoo dynasties that gradually arose long before the Christian era, and the Veddurs, now adopting the appellation of Beydur, became soldiers and tillers of the soil, but never artisans, or reaching any degree of education. Under chiefs of their own, some small principalities were formed westward of Madras, some of which still exist, but most have disappeared in wars with the first Mussulman invaders and with ourselves. In North-Western Mysore, also, the Beydurs attained considerable power. They held many strongholds, and were feudal vassals of several Hindoo dynasties before the arrival of the Mussulman invaders in the twelfth century; and although the last of these dynasties, that of Beejanugger, fell to the Mussulman arms after the battle of Talikote in a.d. 1564, yet the chiefs of the Beydur tribes submitted to them, and became powerful feudal vassals.
The wars between the Hindoo kingdom of Beejapoor and the Mussulman kingdoms of the Dekban had continued for several centuries, and their great field of battle and object of contention was the province which lies between the rivers Krishna to the north and Tamboodra to the south, the capitals of which are Moodgul and Raichore. It was sometimes in possession of the Hindoos and sometimes in the Mussulmans'; thus the allegiance of the Beydur clans became divided; and as the Mussulmans confirmed their hereditary rights and privileges, many of the Beydur chiefs entered their service; and, as the tribe at large were the best infantry soldiers of the period, their service was always valuable.
This portion of them were the allies and servants of the great Bahmuny Mussulman dynasty of Gulburgah and Beedur, and rendered essential service in guarding these southern frontiers, as well as in many general actions; and from having in the early period been confined to the frontier of the Tamboodra river, they gradually extended themselves over the Raichore Dooab, and their chiefs formed small principalities which originally must have been independent, or held in feudal service, but which how exist only in name. In northern Mysore, the chieftainships of Chittledroog, Hurpunhully, once powerful minor states, were overwhelmed by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan, and the present representatives are now pensioners under the British Government; and the last Beydur state, Shorapoor, situated in the Dooab, which lies between the Bheema to the north and the Krishna to the south, having rebelled in 1858, was attached, and is now the property of the Government of His Highness the Nizam.
At the close of the sixteenth century, however, the period of our tale, this Beydur principality held a high position. A portion of the tribe had at first, probably about the fourteenth century, crossed the Krishna, and their earliest settlements were at Korikul, Kukeyra, and the villages on the left or northern bank of the river; thence they spread all over the province, their chief or naik selecting Wakin-Keyra, a village at the extreme end of a rugged chain of hills, where there was a strong position, as his capital, which he fortified. The tribe then could muster twelve thousand well-armed infantry militia; and beside these the Rajah had a force of other soldiers, horse and foot, amounting to about four thousand more. His revenues were not derived from the land only, but from dues in various provinces, being a percentage on the revenues—this, in most instances, being literally the Beydur's black mail; and as the militia not only assisted the reigning King of Beejapoor, but protected the whole of his eastern frontier against aggression by the King of Golconaa, the tribe was held in high estimation, and certainly fought bravely wherever they were employed.