Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s9.5

v2.c27.s9.5

As the Bhāu advanced beyond the Āhir country north-east of Sironj, the villagers rose in his rear and made the roads unsafe for traffic and couriers, but he could not turn back to chastise them. From Sironj he made a detour to the left by way of Araun (25 m. n. w. of Sironj, 14 May), Miānā (32 m. n. of Araun, 19 May), and Narwar, arriving at Gwālior on 30th May. During a two days’ halt in this last city, he received information from Malhar which decided him to cross the Chambal a little east of Dholpur and not near Kerauli, as in the alternative plan. Leaving Gwālior on 2 June, he crossed the Kumāri (a feeder of the Chambal) on the 4th and the Chambal, some ten miles below Dholpur on the 8th, and issued strict orders to his soldiers not to molest the Jāt territory which they entered on that day [SPD. ii. 126], as it was the Peshwā’s policy to keep the Jāt Rajah on the Maratha side. The Bhāu’s artillery and stores took a long time to be carried over the deep ravines intersecting both banks of the Chambal, and he halted more than a month (8th June—12 July) on the north bank of the Chambal, at some distance south of the Utangan river, which flows 20 miles south of Agra, roughly parallel to the Chambal.