A History of the Mahrattas v1.c8.53

v1.c8.53

A.D. 1429.—An army was sent in the year 1429, in the reign of Sultan Ahmed Shah Wullee Bahminee, to extirpate the banditti, to give security to the people, and to restore order in the country. This expedition was commanded by Mullik-ool-Tijar, who was accompanied by the hereditary Deshmookhs of the districts, wherever they remained, and an experienced Bramin named Dadoo Nursoo Kallay. Their first operations were against some Ramoosees³ in Kuttao Des, and a body of banditti that infested the Mahadeo hills.⁴ The army next marched towards Waee, reduced several forts, and even descended into the Concan⁵; but Mullik-ool-Tijar appears, on this occasion, to have crossed the Ghauts, without penetrating into the fastnesses of the mountains on either side. On his return to Beder, Dadoo Nursay and a Turkish eunuch of the court were left to arrange the country and recall the inhabitants.¹ As the former boundaries of villages were forgotten, Dadoo Nursay, in fixing new limits, extended them very much, and threw two or three villages into one. Lands were given to all who would cultivate them: for the first year, no rent was required; and for the second, a tobra² full of grain for each Beega³ was all that was demanded. But the result of this expedition was a mere temporary relief from the heavy contributions which the banditti of the Ghaut-Mahta were in the habit of exacting; and it soon appeared, that there could be no effectual security afforded to the villages, until the whole of the hill forts should be reduced.⁴