A History of the Mahrattas v2.c54.43

v2.c54.43

The ordinary modes of torture, inflicted by these miscreants, were heavy stones placed on the head or chest; red-hot irons applied to the soles of the feet; tying the head of a person into a tobra or bag for feeding horses, filled with hot ashes; throwing oil on the clothes and setting fire to them; besides many others equally horrible. The awful consequences of a visitation from the Pindharees can scarcely be imagined by those who have not witnessed them. For some time, until the districts in Malwa, Marwar, Mewar, and the whole of Rajpootana were exhausted, and the Pindharees were encouraged and excited to venture on more fertile fields, their ravages were chiefly confined to those countries and Berar; a few of them, however, ventured almost every year into the dominions of the Nizam and the Peishwa, though little notice was taken of them by the British Government, whilst they refrained from molesting its own subjects ¹ and territory. But even had no other causes arisen to excite the Pindharees to extend their depredations, it was impossible, in the state in which India was left by the half measures and selfish policy adopted by the British Government, that any part of it could long remain exempt from predatory inroad. The Rajpoot states were overrun by Umeer Khan, Sindia, Holkar, and the Pindharees; and the territories of Sindia and Holkar, intermixed as they were in Malwa, and in the hands of a powerful and lawless soldiery, soon became, like Rajpootana, common prey. The aggressions of Sindia and Holkar on each other gave rise to disputes and even to battles; but to no political warfare. Had Sindia been able to pay up the arrears due to