Page:Old Deccan Days.djvu/15

 PREFACE TO

THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION.

HAVE been often asked under what circumstances these stories were collected?

The circumstances were as follows.

In the cold weather of 1865-6, my father, whom I accompanied, made a three months' tour through the Southern Mahratta Country, in the Bombay Presidency, of which he was then Governor.

Our party was composed of my father and his Staff, to whom were usually added two or three friends, and the Officers Civil and Military, who were commanding in the Districts through which he was passing. Our mode of progress consisted in riding or driving about twenty-five miles a day, from one of our Camps to the next. We usually halted a day or two at each Camp, which admitted of a double march being taken by the Camp we had left behind us, and of its being ready pitched on our arrival, two days' march in advance of where we had left it. The double Camps, with the elephant, camel, and mule drivers, grooms, tent-pitchers, cooks, and other servants, numbered, with the addition of the Governor's Body-Guard, about six hundred souls. My mother being at the time absent in England, I chanced to be the only lady of the party. Anna Liberata de Souza, my native ayah, went with me.

Our route from Poona, whence we started, lay through the district of Satara, with its fort-crowned hill (where the Mahratta Chief Sivajee's sword 'Bowanee,' given to him by Bowanee, the Goddess of Vengeance, is still shown), Kurar, with its Buddhist caves; the Native State of Kolapore; where, accompanied by Mrs. Wilder, the wife of an American missionary, I visited the Aka Sahib, and the Ranee in the Palace; Belgaum, with its beautiful fort and ruined Jain temples, and Dharwar, near the scene of the battle of Ram Droogand, and where we saw the Nawab's cheetas hunting antelope on the level plains.