[CHAPTER LXIX.]
Magnificent as is the scenery of the Western Ghauts of India throughout their range, it is nowhere, perhaps, more strikingly beautiful than in the neighbourhood of the great isolated plateau which—rising high above the mountain-ranges around it, and known under the name of Maha-bul-eshwur, from the temple at the source of the sacred river Krishna on its summit—is now the favourite summer retreat and sanatorium of the Bombay Presidency. Trim roads, laid out so as to exhibit the beauties of the scenery to the best advantage—pretty English-looking cottages, with brilliant gardens, and a considerable native town, are now the main features of the place; but at the period of our tale it was uninhabited, except by a few Brahmuns and devotees, who, attracted by the holiness of the spot, congregated around the ancient temple, and occupied the small village beside it. Otherwise the character of the wild scenery is unchanged. From points near the edges of the plateau, where mighty precipices of basalt descend sheer into forests of ever-lasting verdure and luxuriance, the eye ranges over a sea of rugged mountain-tops,—some, scathed and shattered peaks of barren rock—others with extensive flat summits, bounded by naked cliffs which, falling into deep gloomy ravines covered with dense forests, would seem inaccessible to man.
To some readers of our tale, this scenery will be familiar; but to others it is almost impossible to convey by description any adequate idea of its peculiar character, or of the beauty of the ever-changing aërial effects, that vary in aspect almost as the spectator turns from one point to another. Often in early morning, as the sun rises over the lower mists, the naked peaks and precipices, standing apart like islands, glisten with rosy tints, while the mist itself, as yet dense and undisturbed, lies wrapped around their bases, filling every ravine and valley, and glittering like a sea of molten silver.
Again, as the morning breeze rises in the valleys below, this vapour breaks up slowly: circling round the mountain summits, lingering in wreaths among their glens and precipices, and clinging to the forests, until dissipated entirely by the fierce beams of the sun. Then, quivering under the fervid heat, long ridges of rugged valleys are spread out below, and range beyond range melts tenderly into a dim distance of sea and sky, scarcely separated in colour, yet showing the occasional sparkle of a sail like a faint cloud passing on the horizon. Most glorious of all, perhaps, in the evening, when, in the rich colours of the fast-rising vapours, the mountains glow like fire; and peak and precipice, forest and glen, are bathed in gold and crimson light; or, as the light grows dimmer, shrouded in deep purple shadow till they disappear in the gloom which quickly falls on all.
Westward from this great mountain plateau, and divided from it by a broad deep valley clothed with forests, the huge mountain of Pertâbgurh rises with precipitous sides out of the woods and ravines below. The top, irregularly level, furnished space for dwelling-houses and magazines, while ample springs of pure water sufficed for the use of a large body of men, by which it could be easily defended. At various periods of time—by the early Mahratta chieftains of the country in remote ages, and afterwards by their Mussulman conquerors—walls and towers had been added to the natural defences of the place, as well as strong gateways, protected by bastions and loopholed traverses, on the only approach to the summit—a rugged pathway, which could hardly be called a road. Under very ordinary defence, the place was perfectly impregnable to all attacks by an enemy from without; and, at the period of our tale, it was held as his capital and choicest stronghold, among many such fastnesses in those mountains, by Sivaji Bhóslay, a man destined to play a conspicuous part in the history of his country and people in particular, and of India at large.
We have already informed the reader, in a somewhat desultory manner perhaps, for we are not writing his history, of the attempts made by Sivaji to establish an independent power; and, by taking advantage of the weakness and distraction of the kingdom of Beejapoor, of which he was a vassal, on the one hand, and of the ambitious designs of the Emperor Aurungzeeb on the other, to raise himself to a position in which he could secure the actual administration, and eventually the sovereignty, of his native wilds.
Hindu history is in all cases unsatisfactory; and that of the early Mahratta chiefs and principalities of the Dekhan eminently so. On the invasion of the Dekhan by Alla-oo-deen, nephew of the then King of Delhi, in A.D. 1294, the fort and city of Deogurh, now Doulatabad, was held by Rajah Ramdeo Jadow, who appeared then to have been prince of the whole country. Whether he was so or not, whether the chiefs of the wild tracts of the Ghauts and provinces lying on the western sea-coast were his tributaries or vassals, or whether they were actually independent of each other, has never been ascertained; but, on the downfall of the princely house of Jadow, no other ruler or chieftain seems to have made any resistance, and the Mahomedans, gathering strength, and founding a kingdom at Gulburgah, in the centre of the Dekhan, gradually subdued the whole tract, establishing garrisons in the wildest parts, fortifying hills not already used as strongholds, and improving the defences of others, in that noble and picturesque style of fortification which now excites our wonder and admiration.
One of the Mahratta families of ancient native nobility, though not of the highest grade, were the Bhóslays. The Jadows, though no longer possessing princely power, had descended into the rank of landed proprietors, or hereditary officers, under the ancient Hindu tenure, of the districts over which their ancestors had once held sway. Under ordinary circumstances, an alliance between the families would have been rejected by the Jadows; but one fell out nevertheless, and after a strange manner.
At the marriage of a mutual friend, Shahji Bhóslay, then a pretty boy, was present with his father, and the head of the family of the Jadows with his daughter, Jeejee, a child younger than the boy Shahji. The children began to play together, and the girl's father remarked jocosely what a pretty couple they would make. The remark was heard by the boy's father, who claimed it as a promise of betrothal, and, after some discussion, and objection as to disparity of rank, the children were eventually married. From these parents sprung Sivaji, who, with his mother, as remarkable a person in many respects as himself, became the originators and leaders of the renewed independence of the Hindus of the Dekhan.