Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/427

Rh Bijapur; but Bankapur, the capital, was still unconquered when he breathed his last. So also was Bednur, which merely paid him tribute. (Struggle for Savanur, in Dig.) Outside these settled or half-settled parts of his kingdom, there was a wide and very fluctuating belt of land subject to his power but not owning his sovereignty. They were the adjacent parts of the Mughal empire (Mughlai in Marathi), which formed the happy hunting-ground of his horsemen. In these he levied blackmail (khandani, i.e., ransom, in Marathi), as regularly as his army could repeat its annual visit to them. The money paid was popularly called chauth, because it amounted to one-fourth of the standard assessment of the land revenue of a place. But as this paper assessment was always larger than the actual collection, the real incidence of the chauth was considerably more than one-fourth of what the peasants paid to their legitimate sovereign. The payment of the chauth merely saved a place from the unwelcome presence of the Maratha soldiers and civil underlings, but did not impose on Shivaji any corresponding obligation to guard the district from foreign invasion or internal disorder. The Marathas looked only to their own gain and not to the fate of their prey after they had left. The chauth was only a means of buying off one robber, and not a subsidiary system for the maintenance of peace and order against all enemies. The lands subject to the