his ancestors were famous as a very ancient royal house, before the Mahomedans invaded the Deccan. The old man had borne arms as a youthful commander of horse, when the great Duke was at Poona in 1802, just before the battle of Assaye; had been greatly distinguished for his gallantry in the battle of Kirkee, so fatal to his race, and had followed the fortunes of the Peishwa to the last. Disdaining to make separate terms for himself with the English conqueror, he remained one of the few thoroughly faithful to his sovereign, not from love, for he loved not Bajee Row, but 'because he had eaten his salt,' and only after the Peishwa's surrender returned to his old castle near Poona. There for many years he lived, hunting and hawking over his diminished acres, and greatly respected as a model of a gallant and honourable old chief; but he could never be persuaded to revisit the capital of the Mahrattas after its occupation by the English. 'He had no child,' he said, 'and his race would die with him.' At last, as years rolled on, an only son was born to him; and then, touched by some unexpected act of liberality on the part of the British Government which would secure his ancestral estate to this child of his old age, he resolved to go to Poona, and visited the Governor, whose temporary residence happened to overlook the battle-field of Kirkee. He gazed long and wistfully from the drawing-room windows and said, 'This place is much changed since I was here last, fifty years ago. It was here the battle was fought, and it was from near this very spot that we charged down that slope on the English line as it formed beyond that brook. I never thought to have seen this place again.'
As these pages are written the overland mail brings a letter written on gold-flowered paper, in beautiful square Mahratta characters. It is from the old chief. It asks no favour, save a photograph of an old friend he can never see again, and conveys in terms of stately courtesy an assurance of his good-will and cordial recollection.
Not many miles from Poona a beautiful obelisk of black basalt, rising from the great plain which stretches eastward, marks the village of Koreigaom. There, a few weeks after the battle of Kirkee, a single battalion of Sepoys (the 1st Bombay Grenadiers), with a few British gunners of the Madras Artillery, and troopers of the Poona Horse, defended the open village for a whole day against the Mahratta army, commanded by the Peishwa in person, and infuriated by their then recent defeat at Kirkee.
Of the heroes of that little band few, of course, now survive. When we visited Koreigaom, the most conspicuous among the crowd of villagers was a little Mahratta boy, who over his ordinary garments had donned the full-dress coatee of a native officer's uniform of half a century ago. He was the son of a Jemadar (captain of native infantry), selected by Sir John Malcolm from among the heroes of the Grenadiers, to hold a small grant of land which the wise liberality of the old Court of Directors had given in perpetuity to insure the safeguard of the monument. The lad had carefully preserved his father's sword, sash, and cap, and had ranged them on a carpet in the little courtyard in front of his door, that we might see them as we passed by to examine the scene of the struggle. A few only of the elders of the village remembered the day, when, as terrified children, they had hidden themselves while the battle raged; but all could point out the spots where every incident occurred. The mud houses of the village are clustered now, as then, on the summit of a large mound which overlooks the river Bheema, and on the highest point, at the intersection of the two irregular streets, is a little open space (as usual in Mahratta villages), with the sacred tree, under which the elders congregate every evening to hear the news, and to sit in conclave in front of the village temple and choultry (or resting-place for travellers). These were the only stone buildings in the village. The massive square pillars of black basalt bear in bas-relief carvings of ages ago, scenes of battles of heroes and demigods taken from the ancient national epic. This little temple, though not many feet square inside, was, from its strength and situation, the key of the position. Commanding the street on one side, and overlooking the river on the other, it enabled a few men to protect the guns posted in the open space. Here was the only shelter for the wounded. Our men had but partial possession of the village, small as it was, for on the morning of the battle as they marched in to occupy it
