The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.80

v1.c15.80

The train works up the Ghāts from Bombay through thick forests, and if it be the rainy season past rushing waterfalls, until it surmounts the brink top and comes out on to the plain of the Deccan table-land in the relative drought of the upper climate. The Western Deccan in rear of Bombay constitutes the Marāthā country. The Marāthās are the southernmost of the peoples of Indo-European speech in India. Their homeland on the plateau, round the city of Poona, now forms the main portion of the Province of Bombay. The landscape of the plateau lies widely open, studded here and there with table-topped mountains, not unlike the kopjes of South Africa. These steep-sided isolated mountain blocks have often served as strongholds in warfare.