Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/194

152 arisen, a power which sprang from such needy and insignificant beginnings that no one could have foretold its future malignant domination. The Marathas began to make themselves felt.

This famous Hindu people inhabited the country lying between the Indian Ocean and the river Warda; their northern boundary was the Satpura range, and on the west coast they extended as far south as Goa. Their strength lay in the inaccessible fastnesses of the Western Ghats, which climb precipitously to the great plateau that stretches across the Deccan to the Bay of Bengal. Between the Ghats and the sea lies the Konkan, in which deep valleys and torrent-beds lead from the rocks and forests of the mountain ridge to the fertile plains of the humid tract near the sea, where the torrents merge in sandy creeks among thickets of mangroves. The Ghats and the Konkan were the safe retreats of wild beasts and wiry Marathas.

The Marathas had never made any mark in history before the reign of Shah Jahan. They were peaceful, frugal husbandmen, like the mass of the lower orders of Hindus, and gave no trouble. Their chiefs, or village headmen, were Sudras, of the lowest of the four castes, like their followers, though they pretended to connect themselves with the noble warrior caste of Kshatriyas. In the silent times of peace, the Marathas enjoyed the happiness of the nation that has no history. War brought out their dormant capacities, however, and their daggers soon rut their name deep in the annals