Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/78

 entirely of the horny scales of the Indian armadiilo 7 or pangolin, [Mams pentadactyla encrusted with gold, and turquoises, and garnets. There is another splendid suit of Cashmere chain armour, fine almost as lace 'work. The style is essentially Persian and Circassian, and is identical with that of the armour worn in Europe in the thirteenth century* The damascened casque is surmounted with a plume of pearls. There are many other suits of armour, with damascened breastplates, gauntlets, and greaves, which carry one back to the crusades and legendary history of modern Persia. Some of the sword blades are marvel- lonsly watered, several are sculptured in half relief with hunting scenes, and others arc strangely shaped, teethed like a saw, and flaming [flamboyani although for mingled cruelty and grotesque- ness of appearance none equal the battle-axes of the Sowrahs and Khonds. There is the kukri of the Ghurkas, the adyakathi of the Moplas, the tiga of the wild tribes of Central India, and the knife used in the Meriah sacrifice. The collection also con- tains the great sword of Mahmud Chand Sultan Shah of the date of 1707, and the sword [No. 1,439] the famous Polygar Kata- bom m a Naik, who defeated the English early in the present century; and, most interesting of all, the sword [No, 74] of Sivaji, the founder of the Maratha dominion in India.

The rise of the Maratha power was almost contemporary with our own appearance in India. The Mogol Emperors of Delhi were in the habit of taking the Hindu Princes and Chiefs into high employ, and among the Maratha families in their ser~ vice were the Bhonslas, whose tutelary deity was the goddess Bbavani of Tuljapur, It was of their family that the renowned Sivaji was born, at Siwnir, near Junir, about twenty miles south- west of Poona, in the very heart of the mawuis or valleys, which lie on the landward side of the Western Ghlts between Poona and Sattara. The hilly land between the Western Ghats and the sea is called the Konkan. This is the cradle of the Maratha race, and it was with the aid of the hardy mawulis, or people of