NOTES ON THE CENTRAL TALUKAS OF THE THANA COLLECTORATE.
BY W. F. SINCLAIR, Bo. C. S.
PROBABLY no capital city in the world is so closely surrounded by wild and uncivilired country as Bombay, I h»ve, bulb in the Than* and Kalibj'i districts, beard the Tort guns in plarws which (for any sign of civiliza! ion they ■ in . • .1 .1 might i. ivi'hi^n in t!;v deepesl root i of the hi-it jiiir.'is, and among jwople as wild, per- haps, w any in tho 1 *rc* >i i The difficulties of provxajuu uud transport through moat part of the North Konkuu arc what one might expect iu the remotest haokwoods. For these reuious, probably, less than we might expect is known about sumo plaoos not wanting in intere «t in the country lyiutf between the Bftfisein bill*, N. E. extension of the G. I. P. ltui!way. mid thy sou thorn boundary nf the Slate of J a w and comprised iu i' of Bhi- vandl o"' 1 Wire, to which the following nutca chiefly w3 Early iu tho Rth century a frecbooting Koli named J a y a p pa N Ay a k M u k h n e founded the kingdom of J a w it r ; ft rid so iaxonrablo was the country then, ay uuw. to predatory I prim-, that, in 1841 the Court of Dcbli reeoguiaed tun Boo. by the title of Xoui Shah, as E&a|i of a territory extending' from the Dunmugunjju nearly to iho UlAn or Bar Ghat river, aud from the Sahyndri range to within a firw miles of tho sen, and allowed htm to exercise in its name H o huijdari ofBhivan^t.* Kron i I 1 , tl day to this it does not appear that the Emperor* ever exercised |K>rmnnent authority in these parts otherwise, than through thin mountain robber and hk descendants ; nor caul di&< the Kings of Ahmadnagar, the nearest of the Dekhani Mut-n' ate*, over brought the Jaw Af territory into subjection. But wilh the rise of the MarittM power oame a struggle ofd^ out diamond. The A n g r i A family pushed ao for north, especially in the neighbourhood of the fine navigable ostuary of Knlysn, that wo find lands bald under their aanada tea mile* N. E. ofBhrruodt; and with the increasing power of tho PeshwAs tinea got worse and woraa for tho B/ijag of .Towar ; till in or "about the year 1782 MadbavrAo NArayan PeshwA imposed an • Bop! Jfoto cvmifitbd vtith tbi petty &t"U*ttfJaw4* w in. O* Tadnd CiUtetorait, ej 8- Msm." ttoctor <»f tb* North Ko&kau, 8«bnuLt«l to Gcrenuocul in 1 £3 > arrangviuuut ou the KAja by which he waa allowed to retain ' f - annual ralno of from Ea. 15,000 to B#, 20 P 0CH» only."t It wnnld also appear, from ruin* and tradirion, that
- t u s^uaao posseBBed at ouo time much oi
i-n part of Hbivandi, and ou at least one occasion ad ra n red &* fir inland as G u u j , il Ware Taluku , B fOTyw h aw along the creeks an tho rain" of amall V> towera; and umnB- timea wella ; and at K ft m b e , u milo N . W . of tidl, is a small aquaro fort with two has- at opposite corners, well placed so aa to command >m the one side the Lukivli Creck t and od the other that of Bhivandi, which in the 1 1 of the KimwAri river. It is said to be Portuguese; but I lmd no time to examine it in search of inscriptions, A hamlet two miles off is culled Kirangpiija. The Musalm&iM are numerically very strong in all thia country — a curious circumstuaee uiTing how little political power they hare But these are not, like the MusalmanH of tho Dckhan. desoDnded mostly from miutary advnnturera. By race and habit pacific and industrious, they ore thriving trndert "litivatora; and, though many aro patib, th e tornporary service of Government is not much by/ them as compared with the Dekhanls, who so«n to think it the only labour worthy of thom. They seem to have, for J4u* huinujAdnfui, r«mo taste for education, and stand nlone among all castes of these talnkas in their abstention from drunJccnneas, the besetting vice of the Koukauia. At Hhivandl they lavo ono or two pretty ness^flOB, of modern date-, a fine 'Idgnh, date unknown ; and a beautiful tomb which enshrines the remains or a certain Husatn Slilh, commonly called th« DMn 8hih t of whom they | ho was Voytr of H japar. hut re- l inns life in this place, and that after his death the then Shah of BijApur built tlie tomb.J I have not seen the inside of the building, as I could not enter il in boots without oflending the reverential fbelhags of the Mnsalmaiis, or IfciBilay GotanttDfBt Roooetb No. XXVI, >"■» Sanec p. It. f SHcL, t Tbi«. tram tl» dslw- i» imf«t*Mt.
