Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/233

Rh ward a large army, supported by the federal contingents of Holkar and Sind. Raghunath Kao seized Delhi, expelled Najib-ad-daulah; then marched swiftly with his light troops onward to Lahore, drove out the governor left there by Ahmad Shah, and substituted a Maratha administration in the Panjab.

A MOHAMMEDAN TOMB AT LAHORE.

This achievement marks, as Grant Duff observes in his "History of the Marathas," the apogee of Maratha pre-eminence; "the Deccan horses had quenched their thirst in the waters of the Indus"; but it also marks the turning-point and ebb of their fortunes. By such a bold stroke for the possession of Northern India, they overreached themselves, for the effort drew them very far from their base; the Mohammedans were numerous and hardy in the north, and the Marathas