1838.] 



Description of the Valley of Sondur. 



133 



them leaving him and his family the empty pageantry of royalty, but 

 in reality kept them as state prisoners at Satarah. Holkar established 

 himself at Indore — Scindia at Oojein, and finally in 1810 at Gualior in 

 the province of kg\-R,—Baji Row at VooY\B.—Ragoji Bhonslah at ^'Ag- 

 ]pove~PillaJi Gaicowar, originally the potail of an insignificant vil- 

 lage, at Baroda, and a descendant of the great Sivaji at Kolapur. 



Such was the remarkable dismemberment of the Mahratta empire, 

 an event most worthy of record, even in the fitful history of the east in 

 whose pages whole dynasties spring up and are swept away — empires 

 are erected and vanish as if touched by the magic wand of a capricious 

 enchanter, with a rapidity alike sudden and monitory. 



The royal family remained at Satarah receiving empty homage 

 from their vassal Baji Row and the succeeding Peshwas of Poona who 

 usurped all real power. The progress of the Mahratta arms continued 

 to advance, until the severe check experienced in the plain of Paniput 

 near Delhi, A. D. 1761, where they lost upwards of half a million in 

 killed and wounded in a signal defeat sustained at the hands of Ahmed 

 Shah, chief of Cahul. Following their retrograde march from Hindus- 

 tan we find them, from 1768 to 1799, south of the Kistnah in contact 

 with Hyder, Tippoo, and the English, sometimes as allies—sometimes 

 as enemies. In 1803-4-and 5 the power of Nagpur, Oojein and Indore, 

 which had prostrated that of Poona, was paralyzed by Lake and Wel- 

 lesley at the battles of Delhi, Laswari, Assaye and Argaum ; and po- 

 litically annihilated under the Marquis of Hastings' administration in 

 1817-18 by the actions of Khirki, Mahidpur and Nagpur. On the 19th 

 February 1818 the Peshwa's power received the coup de grace at the 

 affair of Ashta where GoJda, his general, was defeated by general 

 Smith, and slain. On the 11th of the ensuing April the descendant 

 of Sivaji was placed on the throne of his ancestors at Satarah by the 

 British commissioners. His present dominions are indeed insignifi- 

 cant when compared with the magnificent empire of his fore-fathers, 

 and even they are held in subordination to the British government, and 

 a resident, with power to interfere in the internal management of the 

 country, maintained at his court. His territory is bounded on the 

 north by the streams of the Bima nad Nira— on the south by the Kist- 

 nah and Warna rivers— to the east by Bijapur and the territory of the 

 Nizam, and on the west by the Western Ghats; it comprehends an 

 area of about 7,943 square miles. 



The states of Holkar, Scindia and the Bhonslah are still under the go- 

 vernment of chiefs of these families, though in great measure deprived 

 of political influence and the means of doing injury by the assumption 



