Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/358

 320 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [November, 1873. up the education of their young men in gymnas¬ tics. Orme says that in 1670 it was a very fre¬ quented port belonging immediately to the king of B i j a p ur; but this was only shortly before the Konkan fell into 6ivaji’s hands. And Hamil¬ ton, writing of the same period, says that this district produced the finest battelas and muslins in India. In 1686, after the unsuccessful expedi¬ tion of Sultan Muazzim, son of Aurangzib, in the Konkan, his brother, Sultan Akbar, who had long been in rebellion against his father, hired a ship commanded by an Englishman at Raja- pur, and embarking there sailed to M u s c a t, and from thence proceeded to Persia. The creek on which Raj a pur stands was guarded about two miles up by the fort of J a i - tapur. This also was held by the Musalmans, but I have heard nothing of its history except that in 1676 it was burnt by the Sidi; but it was theu, I think, in the possession of the Ma- rathas. It is a place with nothing to recom¬ mend it, and has the appearance of having been at best a very second-rate fortress. The route from J a i t a p u r and Rajapur to Bijapur would have been through Baura (to be mentioned later) and Kolhapur. The Kajerda Ghat gives a considerably nearer route to Kolhapur, but I have never found it mentioned in any history, and there is, I believe, no fort to protect it, as there is above the Prabhanvali and Baura Ghats. The creek at the mouth of which Gheria or Vijyadurg stands, which is the last port I have to mention, is only about five miles south of the Rajapur creek. Horsburgh speaks of Vijyadurg as “an excellent harbour, the an¬ chorage being land-locked and protected from all winds. There is no bar at the entrance, the depths being from five to seven fathoms.” Hamilton speaks of R a j a p u r as having “ the conveniency of ono of the best harbours in the world;” but he had not himself been there, and must evidently refer to Vijyadurg,—since Rajapur can no more be said to have a harbour than Green¬ wich or Blackwall, and Jaitapur cannot be meant, as the harbour is both dangerous of access and not well protected. I have been disappointed in not finding any mention of V ij y a d u r g in the older Musalman historians, and am unable to account for it, as there is no doubt that it was held by the Musalmans—firstly, because the older English historians always mention Gheria as the Musalman name of it, and secondly, be¬ cause some of the older parts of the fort are distinctly Muhammadan, and quite different from what is found in purely Maratha forts. Thus there are Saracenic doors and windows in the three-storied towers, which are themselves uncommon features, and in the inner gateway; and there are also a mosk and the tomb of a pir, the first being in the centre of the fortress, very near the flagstaff mound. The fort also is said to have been only rebuilt, and not built, by Sivaji. There is no doubt, however, that it is to Sivaji that it owes its finest features,—the triple line of walls, the numerous towers, and the massive buildings in the interior,—all of which, with its situation, make it by far the grandest fortress I have ever seen. There is a consi¬ derable Musalman population outside the fort, and in many of the villages all up this creek, which is still navigable up to Kharepatafi, although it, like most of the other creeks, has much silted up. The present town of Khare- patan has a small trade, but is quite insigni¬ ficant, and its situation hot and confined. But passing through the Musalman quarter a very rough road leads to a fine open site, lying along the bank of the river and extending a considerable distance, with Musalman tombs in every direction. Here was the old Musalman town, and though there is not. a house now standing, nor anything except the tombs and the walls of three or four mosks, it is easy to believe that there was once a large town, for there is a fine level space lying above a long reach of tho river, and the hills behind this slope very gently upwards. It is said that the sites of twelve or thirteen mosks can be shown, and the one which still remains among the Mu- salmfin houses in the town was the Jamma Masjid, and evidently a building of consi¬ derable pretensions. Well outside the present limits of the town is a very large brick tank, nearly dry and quite ruinous, an inscription on which states that it was built by a Brahman in 1659. Why a Hindu should have built a tank in the middle of the Musalman part of the town just at the time when the Musalmans were losing their hold on this part of the country, I certainly cannot explain. Near the middle of the present town is a half-buried stone, which is believed to have been the boun¬ dary between the Hindu and the Musalman