eye, weighing only ten stone, but with disproportionately long arms; a climber by nature, and full of a lofty love of high places. The forts made him what he became, and he made the forts what they were the terror of all India: the cradle of his nation; the basis of his conquests; the steps to his ambition; his home and his joy ;-many of them he built, all of them he strengthened.

I do not hesitate to say, that no man can understand the history of this country, more especially of its earlier and nobler passages, to which I have alluded (for the Mahrattas as a nation had little nationality before the genius and energies of the great spirit consolidated it for a while); no man, I say, can study that time as it well deserves to be studied by those whose lot is cast here, without the aid of that vivid realisation of historic scenes afforded alone by some personal acquintance with these great fortresses, and with the rugged districts amid which they stand.

As far as I have been able to discover, no description of the forts of the Deccan has ever been written, though materials for describing their present condition exist in the quartermaster general's office. Many of them have been accurately surveyed and mapped for military purposes-as the specimens here exhibited, which have been kindly lent me by Colonel Phayre and Major Wray, abundantly testify. They are Raighur, Rajghur, Bhoorup, Rohira, Eesapore, and Hurrichunderghur, selected for their interest, or as being typical of their sort.

Official lists exist, with one word, sometimes, as descriptive of their military condition, which is, as regards most of them—" deserted." Such a list, made out in 1849, has been lent me. It has the names of 140 forts in the limits of the Poona division of the army; but it is roughly calculated that the country included in the term "Maharashtra," from the Taptee to the Toombudra, contains no less than 1000; though of this large number many would, I think, be found unworthy of more than a word or two of description.

It will soon be noticed by one who begins to examine these "castles in the air," as they may be called, that most

of them bear a close resemblance to each other. There is, on near inspection, found to be great diversity, both of situation and plan of fortification. Generally speaking, however, they are formed by nature exactly in the same way. On first approaching one of them, we observe the sloping hillside ribbed with great bands of rock, about the same thickness and general distance from each other; steeper and steeper it rises to a summit, capped by a mass of hard rock, which is scarped by nature, and varying in height generally from 40 to 400 feet. On the topmost edge of this scarp, walls are built, as frequently weakening as strengthening the natural fortification; and at certain accessible places, where perhaps a spur leads up from the plain, massive gates are constructed. Within the area, on an undulating table-land, we find the store-houses and residences of the garrison, or their ruins; and often, rising several hundred feet higher still, is an elevation called the bala-kila, or upper fort, generally fortified with additional strength, as the last resort of the beleaguered garrison.

The natural history of these forts, which are scattered over a vast slice of India called the Deccan, is everywhere the same. The whole Deccan is geologically of one formation. From Agra to Goa, and eastward nearly to Orissa, there is a monotonous similarity; the whole of the country being covered with the same kind of rocks. They are all volcanic, and containing, to a great extent, the same ingredients in every variety of combination-chiefly augite, porphyry, basalt, laterite, tuff, and trap; the mineralogical limits of these terms being still, I believe, undecided by the geologist. It would appear, that a series of overwhelming waves of lava, issuing, slowly or rapidly, from many eruptive centres, poured themselves, at uncertain intervals, over this whole country. In these successive layers of molten matter, all trace of organic structure has been destroyed: some of them deposited above, perhaps, others under the waters; some giving off their gases rapidly, and cooling into the loose stratum of trap, others cooling more slowly, and hardening, as they cooled, into the compact basalt; some

crystallising into porphyry, as may be seen so curiously at Poorundhur, others built up into the rude sub-columnar structure which is characteristic of most of the scarps on which the forts are built; in others, a large admixture of oxide of iron reddened the stratum into what is called laterite*a word sufficiently descriptive of the results (as from "later," a tile, not from "latus-eris" a side, as indicating its position). I have often mistaken, for tiles or pottery, bits of this stratum, baked in the mighty kilns of the pre-adamite world. This, I suppose, is that which, when comminuted into fine red dust, makes Mahableshwur such as expensive place for the ladies. These various strata being deposited, were thenceforward subjected to the gentle violence of air and water, assisted by heat and cold; a process of denudation commenced, which is still slowly proceeding (for nature, like society, is gradually levelling); and streams cut down through the softer strata, and undermined the harder-cleaving their way, and letting down, "by the run," great blocks of indurated basalt from above, which, when ground to powder by degrees, and mixed with other materials, became the black cotton soil of the plains below. Whenever any cause had hardened a particular portion of the strata, that part resisted the disintegrating process; an isolated block of the upper stratum remained, which required little from the hand of man to become an almost inaccessible fortress. Thus, when man began to crawl, and quarrel, on the surface of this fair earth, he found these strange islands in a sea of hills, which gave him security from the hand of his brother man, and from the wild beasts of early times; he cut steps up the scarps, climbed to their summits, and was safe and it is highly probable, that ever since the first dispersion of our race, these forts have been places of the greatest importance to the security of the inhabitants.

Sometimes they rise amid the plains (eg. Narrayenghur, eight miles from Jooneer, which may be seen from Sin

* Laterite: a red rock, composed of silicate of alumina and oxide of iron.-See Lyell's Manual, page 375.

ghur); but more frequently they run in chains, like the series of forts built by Sivaji, on the caps of a line of hills running from Tataowra, near the Salpee Ghaut, nearly to Panalla, by which that part of the great valley of the Kistna is defended; or, like that still more remarkable line of forts, which crown the range of mountains dividing the Deccan from Khandeish, and the Gungatherra, or Vale of the Godavery, from that of the Taptee. These hills are called the Chandore Range, and are from 600 to 1,100 feet above the plain; rising again above which is a series of abrupt precipices of from 80 to 100 feet high, so wonderfully scarped that only the great numof them-more than is necessary for the defence of the country-prevents one, at first sight, from supposing them the work of the chisel. Almost all are supplied with good water on their summits, and possess little more of fortification than a flight of steps, cut on or through the solid rock, and a number of intricate gateways. This strange line of inaccessible and (if well defended) impregnable forts, stand like giant sentinels athwart the northern invader's path, and tell him what he will have to meet with as he penetrates southward to the Ghautmatha of the Deccan. I shall never forget the coup-d'œil this great chain presented when I first saw it. It was at sunrise, and from the very loftiest peak in all Western India, a point 700 feet higher than Shortrede's Cairn, on the upper platform near the Bishop's house at Mahableshwur. name of this peak is Kulsubaee. During the night before, I had mounted this king of Deccan hills, the ascent of which was more than usually precipitous. At one place, the only possible advance, where the scarp had to be surmounted, was through the branches of a sturdy little tree, which conveniently grew out of the cleft, and formed a ticklish sort of staircase to walk up in the middle of the night. When we reached the foot of the knot of rocks, which form the highest bit of earth. in the Deccan, a night-wind so chilly struck us, that my guides declined the further ascent, and solemnly assured me there was nothing whatever on the top -which we, being so close under the

The

and sufficient area within its walls for a garrison of 3,000 men.

The hill on which the fort is built sweeps majestically up from the valley of the Kanind on its north, to its towering summit, where, hanging far above, its towers and battlements may be descried from below. The path is up a long and tedious spur, which becomes narrower as it rises, till at last it consists merely of steps the size of the foot, cut in the shelving rock-perfectly safe to those whose nerves are not affected by a precipice above, and a gorge below. Passing up some steep steps, the main gate is entered (a fine old piece of masonry in Mahomedan style). Inside is a kucheri, and umberkhana, several tanks, and many ruins. Besides the Delhi gate, at which we entered, there is a Konkuni durwaza on the SW. angle; and jutting out from the east face, at a lower level, as may be seen from hence, the "Dzoondzermal," a long fortified point of rock, and to the south another spur, also fortified, on which stands the Boudla; and the machi or dependant village.

As the setting sun cast clearer shadows, the vast landscape became more and more interesting. Southward, across the jungles I have mentioned, lay the great deep scarp of the Syhadri, which here forms an inlet, as it were, into the Deccan; beyond this, visible over the nine mile level back of the Rairesh war mountain, was to be seen the yellow thatch of Mount Malcolm, the summer residence of the Diocesan at Mahableshwur; and beyond, to the right, Mukramghur and Myputghur, so well known to Mahableshwur visitors. More to the westward, the great mass of Raighur, the most regal of all the forts, lifted its head above the edge of the Deccan, from the scarp of which, and nearer to me, rose the black pillar of Linganaghur.

These forts I had not then visited, and saw with delight for the first time. Far away, the sea gleamed in the last rays of the sun; while the surpassing interest of the panorama was completed by turning my glass to the northward, where a tiny upright line of grey could just be descried, which I well knew to be the spire of our own St. Mary's Church. I never remember

a more peculiar sight than that I saw next morning, when daylight opened upon a vast sheet of tossed and slowly moving mist, rolling up from the Konkun like an angry sea; breaking up, as it struck the Ghauts, into a thousand waves; then leaping slowly over the edge of the mountains into the Deccan, and rolling down each valley at my feet like cold white lava; each flake soon gilded, and then dissolved, by the rising

sun.

This

When Sivaji had gained Torna, and set out on his stormy and adventurous race for independence, his eye soon lit upon a black mass of the same height as Torna, three miles to the eastward of it-the mountain of Morbudh. he scaled, and commenced to fortify it with unusual care, labour, and success. He called it Rajghur. It is, perhaps, the most inaccessible fort in the Deccan; and its construction gained for its builder, from Aurungzebe, the bitter epithet of "the mountain rat.” Few indeed now-a-days of our countrymen visit it, and of these few, fewer still care to scale its famous Bala-kila, long Sivaji's favourite hiding-place, and a curiosity in its way.

During the troubles of 1857, Mr. Rose went up, and threw over an old gun or two that remained, and which might have tempted some one to fix on this wild crag, so full of historic associations, as a haunt, from whence dislodginent, while provisions lasted, would have been simply impossible. When the lower forts are gained (they are on three great spurs, at a level of about 4,300 feet, reached only by goatpaths from the jungle), there rises above them a perpendicular rock, crowned with towers several hundred feet higher, with no semblance of an accessible slope at any point. A path leads along the steep eastern side to a doorway, guarded by towers; and here commences the most extraordinary ascent I ever imagined, and which I recommend to the notice of the curious in such matters. First a few steps towards the crack or crevice in the black basalt, which runs up the junction of the half-crystallised blocks. In this nick, for it is scarcely more, is cut a rock-ladder. There is, at one place, a little assistance from a wooden bridge and balustrae; but at