Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/138

118 and transfer of officers, the payment of the troops, and the regulation of jagirs, was left in the hands of the viceroy at Aurangabad. Jai Singh rightly insisted that in war there should be only one head, and that the 'man on the spot' should be given full authority, or else the work would suffer. The Emperor yielded to the argument and Jai Singh gained absolute civil and military authority alike. The commandants of the Mughal forts at Ahmadnagar and Parenda were also placed under his orders.

In Western Maharashtra with its heavy rainfall, campaigning is impossible during the monsoons. It was already 3rd March when Jai Singh reached Puna, and if he was to effect anything it must be done in the next three months. From his despatches we learn how he utilised every day, how he struck swiftly and hard, and how he followed up every success to the utmost. The mariner does not scan the sky for the storm-cloud with more anxiety than did this general for the herald of the monsoons which must interrupt his work in the middle and drive him into the forced inactivity of cantonments.

The Western Ghats form a long towering wall running north to south along the western side of the Deccan. They have thrown off a number of short spurs eastwards, every two of which enclose a valley, the bed of some stream rolling east to join