267 



husbandmen and artificers, and where the rich have no fixed or 

 landed interest, little support can be expected from them; parti- 

 cularly when they are under the dominion of strangers, in whose 

 preservation they can have no personal iuterest. Thus we see 

 that it is in our power to prolong the duration of our Indian em- 

 pire to a very distant period, if we have but wisdom and firmness 

 to see things as they really are, and acquire clear and distinct ideas 

 on them; and at last when our existence as a great and powerful 

 people shall be traced only in the page of history, posterity will 

 attribute to us the glory of having wrought a change highly im- 

 portant to the prosperity of mankind, and lo the foundation of 

 civil government, in a region where degrading despotism had 

 oppressed the natives, and arrested all improvement in society/' 

 Leckie. 



From Dhuboy we proceeded to Brodera, a city twenty miles 

 to the north-west. About mid-way we crossed the river Dahder, 

 then almost dry; but in the rainy season it is deep and rapid. 

 The country was fertile and well cultivated, but presented neither 

 hills nor uplands, to form the variety we had been accustomed 

 to near the Nerbudda. There is indeed one exception on the 

 right of this extensive plain where the mountain of Powaghur 

 rears its majestic head, and gives an unusual grandeur to the land- 

 scape; it stands entirely unconnected, with a steep, bold, and 

 rocky ascent on all sides. This extraordinary mountain appears 

 considerably higher than the Table-land at the Cape of Good 

 Hope; but resembles it in other respects. On the summit is a 

 strong fortress, belonging to Mhadajee Scindia, a Mahratta chief- 

 tain, difficult of access, and deemed impregnable. 



