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358 martial spirit, and commanding 5,000 Pathan archers, lancers, musketeers and artillery-men. The fort of Kopal was secured by Moro Pant from Qasim Khan for a price. Husain Khan is said by Chitnis (p. 142) to have opposed Shivaji's return by the Kopal-Gadag route and to have been repulsed. Some time after-wards he was defeated and captured by Hambir Rao near Sampgaon, but dismissed by Shivaji with honour. According to a late tradition (T.S. 33b), Husain Khan, being a man of a delicate sense of honour, took his disgrace to heart and swallowed poison. This is untrue, as we have contemporary evidence of Husain Miana deserting from Bijapur to the Mughals on 11th March, 1683, (B. S. 445; M. A., 225.) The Maratha troops who had won these triumphs under Hambir Rao and Moro Pant were, on their return, reviewed by Shivaji and highly praised and rewarded. (Chit. 146.)

"Kopal (105 miles due south of Bijapur and a slightly greater distance south-east of Belgaum) is the gate of the south," and its possession enabled the Maratha dominion to be extended to the bank of the Tungabhadra river and even across it into the Bellary and Chittaldurg districts. Many of the local chieftains, who had long defied the Bijapur Government and withheld taxes in this ill-subdued border country, were now chastised by the Marathas and reduced to obedience, — among them being the poligars of Kanakgiri (25 miles n. e. of Kopal), Harpanhalli (40 miles s. of Kopal), Raydurg, Chittaldurg,