[Sidenote: 27. Map of Bombay Presidency, Nizam’s Territory, and Maratha Country.] [Sidenote: 28. The Satara Hills, Maratha Country.] [Sidenote: 29. Native Plough, Maratha Country.] Now let us journey inland, up the Ghats, through their thick forests, and if it be the rainy season, past rushing waterfalls, until surmounting the brink top we come out on to the plain of the tableland, and into the relative drought of the upper climate. This is the Maratha country, and here we have a typical view of the open landscape which it presents. The hills in the distance are the Satara hills, extending west and east through the heart of India. Here is another view in this same Maratha Country. It shows a native plough at work, and in the background one of the table-topped mountains, which are studded over the surface of the generally level plateau, not unlike the kopjes of South Africa. These steep-sided isolated mountain blocks have often served as strongholds in warfare, and many of them are noted in connection with the Maratha wars, waged in this part of India a little more than a century ago under the lead of Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards the great Duke of Wellington. At the foot of the mountain may just be seen one of the Towers of Silence of the Parsis.
[Sidenote: 30. Maratha Soldier.] [Sidenote: 31. Map of the Maratha Dominions at their greatest extent.] The Marathas are a people of Hindu religion and Marathi language, which is akin, as we learned in the last lecture, to the Hindi of the United Provinces. Some four generations ago they raided most of India from their home on this high plateau of the Western Deccan, and the troops of the East India Company had to wage three successive wars with them. Had it not been for the British victory, there can be little doubt that the Marathas would have established an Empire in India. Their homeland round the city of Poona now forms the main portion of the Province of Bombay, but Maratha princes still rule large conquered countries as feudatories of the King-Emperor. This map shows us the dominion of the Marathas at its greatest extent, near the end of the eighteenth century, when they were the dominant warlike race of India. Their original home was not far from Poona. As they spread, five principal officers of court and state took the place of the dynasty of the Rajas, which became decrepit. These were the Peshwa, the Gaikwar, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Bhonsla. These five great chiefs conquered far and wide through all the heart of India. Sindhia’s dominions extended northward to Delhi, and Bhonsla’s eastward to Orissa on the east coast. The Peshwa was on the plateau round Poona. Holkar was seated at Indore between the Peshwa and Sindhia, and the Gaikwar at Baroda, in the fertile lowland round the head of the gulf of Cambay. At times there was rivalry and war between them, but with the exception of the Peshwa they were united by French intrigue in the time of Napoleon, with the result that we had to fight between the years 1803 and 1805 the most widespread war which we have ever fought in India. Our generals were Lake and Wellesley. The most brilliant victory was that of Assaye, in the plateau country just north of Poona. There, with three thousand troops, Wellesley defeated Sindhia’s army of twenty thousand men, organised by French officers, and captured an artillery of a hundred guns. Peace was made with the conquered Marathas about the time when Trafalgar was fought, and it was stipulated that they were for the future to allow no European influence in their States except the British. There was a subsequent Maratha war, but the great war just referred to was the most serious crisis through which the British rule in India has had to pass, perhaps not even excepting the Mutiny of 1857.