218 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
of Rajpoots/* who are remarkable for the purity of 
their descent, though the low situation held by him in 
the household of the Paishwa would seem to warrant 
a doubt as to the truth of this claim. It frequently 
happens that persons of base origin, who elevate them- 
selves to distinction in their generation, exhibit a ten- 
der anxiety to establish in their own persons the right 
of ancestral dignity, and it is probable that the Mah- 
ratta set up a claim to progenitorial honours which 
he could not substantiate, as it is difficult to conceive 
how the descendant of a Rajpoot family could have 
been in a situation so degrading to a high-born In- 
dian as to be the slipper-carrier even of a Mahratta 
prince. 
Ranojee first appeared as a distinguished leader of 
the Paishwa’s army in 1738, when the cession of 
Malwa to that prince by the Mogul emperor led to 
the eventual establishment of the Mahratta states of 
Scindia, Holcar, and Puar. Most of the conquests of 
Hindostan by the Mahratta armies were held by Ra- 
nojee at his death, which happened about 1750. 
Mahadajee Scindia was his fourth son and illegiti- 
mate ; he succeeded to his father s possessions, upon 
the death of his brothers, who survived their parent 
only a few years, when Mahadajee was establish- 
ed in the full possession of those conquests which 
Ranojee held at his decease. He had distinguished 
himself as a brave and skilful leader in a despe- 
* The reader will find some very interesting particulars of this 
high-born tribe, in Colonel Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of 
Rajast’han, a work of great research and containing vast in- 
formation upon a subject hitherto little investigated. 
