NoveMBER, 1873.]

PORTs sot TH of RATNAGIRí.

breeze. After winding, weary and alarmed, through these dreadful labyrinths, the army entered a darker forest, a passage through which was difficult even to the winds of heaven,

It was bounded on three sides by mountains whose heads towered above the clouds, and on the other side was an inlet of the ocean, so that

there was no path by which to advance in retreat but that by which they had entered.” The troops were by nightfall of course excessively

fatigued, and then Rāja Sirké sent for Shan kar Rāi, who came with a great force and fell on the Musalmāns. The general, five hundred noble Sayids, and nearly seven thousand Musalmān soldiers, besides Abyssinians and Dekhanis, were killed on this occasion, the few survivors escap ing above the ghâts. The exact place where this massacre took place has never been ascertained, but Grant Duff thinks that it was not very far from V is a 1 g a dh, which is so probable, not only from the Rāja of that place being so particularly mentioned, but also from the nature of the coun

try described. Even now, with all the improve ment of the country, there are very few parts of the Southern Konkan where an army of 10,000 men could march without the greatest diffi culty; and the tract of country lying beneath and a little to the north of Viš a liga d h, between the towns of Sang a m e S v ar and Lånjë is almost the only open plain of any extent in the collectorate. Anywhere across this an army might easily have marched for two days, but it would need but a slight devia tion either to the west towards S at a vali,

or to the east towards Viš a 1 g a dh itself, to get into hills and gorges which in those days must almost have come up to the description given by Ferishtah. If it be a fact that an inlet of the ocean was on one side, then the immediate

neighbourhood of Sãt a vali would answer the description : otherwise, as to the closeness of the valleys and the height of the hills, Pra bhā n w a li seems the most likely place. At all events it is most probable that the massacre took place somewhere in the country which lies beneath and in front of the most projecting point of Višā 1 g a dh. This misfortune to the Musalmān arms was

not avenged till 1469, when Khwāja Mahmūd Gawan, the prime minister, collected a large force, and by constant hard labour and with

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many precautions cut his way through the jungles, and at last after an unsuccessful siege of Khel n a for five months, interrupted by the monsoon, succeeded, partly by stratagem and partly by bribery, in getting possession of this fortress. He spent the rest of this season and the whole of the next in ravaging the country, and so, apparently, reduced the whole of the Rājas to subjection, finishing up by taking Goa from the Vidy a nagar troops. As this is stated as the period of the reduction of the whole of the Konkan, we may reasonably sup pose that the establishment of the Musalmāns at Prabhā n väli and Sāt a vali took place soon after this. Two hundred years later, after being captured by Sivāji, Viśā 1 g a dh was twice unsuccessfully besieged by the whole force of Aurangzib, and on one of these occasions the loss of the garrison was so great that on the retreat of the Musalmāns seven hundred satis

are said to have taken place among the widows of the defenders who had fallen.

The road from Višālgadh to Bijá pur would probably lie through Mal kāpur and Kolhã pur-for this is a very slight devia tion from a straight line, and Kolhapur, or rather the neighbouring fortress of Pan à l'a, was almost as famous in Muhammadan as in

Marāthā days. The next place to be mentioned is the creek on which Rājā pur stands. This is one of the oldest towns in the district, and was formerly a place of great trade, which is proved by the Eng lish, French, and Dutch all having had factories here in very early days. It had also a great trade with Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and even now

two or three Arab bagalos come there every year. There is good a deal of interest in the way of Hindu temples and traditions, but I am sorry to say I know very little of its Musalmān his tory, though the Musalmāns are still so strong there as to be divided into two very bitter par ties and to have several mosks. Though plum

dered by Sivāji, it appears never to have been much damaged,—owing its security probably to its being so far from the sea; and it has there fore all the appearance of an ancient town, which Dāb hol, though undoubtedly much older, has lost. A hill behind the town still preserves the name of Tálimkháná, or gymnasium, and I am told that, though it is not used for the pur pose now, the Musalmāns of Rājāpur still keep