By-Ways of Bombay | Page 8

smile; and the armless wastrel
then volunteers the information that the child--for she is little more--is
not a boy but a girl. Merciful Heaven! How comes she here amid this
refuse of humanity? "She is an orphan," says the armless one, "and she
is half-mad. Her parents died when she was very young, and her mind
became somehow weak. There was none to take charge of her; so we of
the opium-club brought her here, and in return for our support she runs
errands for us and prepares the room for the nightly conclave. She is a
Mahomedan." You look again at the dark-eyed child smiling in the
corner and you wonder what horror, what ill-treatment or what grief
brought her to this pass. Peradventure it is a mercy that her mind has
gone and cannot therefore revolt against the squalor of her
surroundings. It is useless to ask her of herself; she can only smile in
her scanty boyish garb. It is the saddest sight in this valley of the abyss,
where men purchase draughts of nepenthe to fortify themselves against
the cares that the day brings. The opium-club kills religion, kills
nationality. In this case it has killed sex also!
[Illustration: A "Madak-Khana."]

IV.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF SHIVAJI.
About half a mile westward of the town of Junnar there rises from the
plain a colossal hill, the lower portion whereof consists of steep slopes
covered with rough grass and a few trees, and the upper part of two
nearly perpendicular tiers of scarped rock, surmounted by an

undulating and triangular-shaped summit. The upper tier commences at
a height of six hundred feet from the level of the plain and, rising
another 200 feet, extends dark and repellant round the entire
circumference of the hill. Viewed from the outskirts of the town, the
upper scarp, which runs straight to a point in the north, bears the
strongest similarity to the side of a huge battleship, riding over billows
long since petrified and grass grown: and the similarity is accentuated
by the presence in both scarps of a line of small Buddhist cells, the
apertures of which are visible at a considerable distance and appear like
the portholes or gun-ports of the fossilised vessel. Unless one has a
predilection for pushing one's way through a perpendicular jungle or
crawling over jagged and sunbaked rock, the only way to ascend the
hill is from the south-western side, from the upper portion of which still
frown the outworks and bastioned walls which once rendered the
fortress impregnable. The road from the town of Junnar is in tolerable
repair and leads you across a stream, past the ruined mud walls of an
old fortified enclosure, and past the camping-ground of the Twelve
Wells, until you reach a group of trees overshadowing the ruined tombs
of a former captain of the fort and other Musulmans. The grave of the
Killedar is still in fair condition; but the walls which enclose it are
sorely dilapidated, and the wild thorn and prickly pear, creeping
unchecked through the interstices, have run riot over the whole
enclosure.
At this point one must leave the main road, which runs forward to the
crest of the Pirpadi Pass, and after crossing a level stretch of rock, set
one's steps upon the pathway which, flanked on one side by the lofty
rock-bastions of the hill and on the other by the rolling slopes, leads
upwards to the First Gate. At your feet lies the deserted and ruined
village of Bhatkala, which once supplied the Musulman garrison with
food and other necessaries, and is now but a memory; and above your
head the wall and outwork of the Phatak Tower mark the vicinity of the
shrine of Shivabai, the family goddess of the founder of the Maratha
Empire. The pathway yields place to a steep and roughly-paved ascent,
girt with dense clumps of prickly pear, extending as far as the first
gateway of the fortress. There are in all seven great gateways guarding
the approach to the hill-top, of which the first already mentioned, the

second or "Parvangicha Darvaja," the fourth or Saint's gate, and the
fifth or Shivabai gate are perhaps more interesting than the rest. One
wonders why there should be seven gateways, no more and no less.
Was it merely an accident or the physical formation of the hill-side
which led to the choice of this number? Or was it perhaps a memory of
the mysterious power of the number seven exemplified in both Hebrew
and Hindu writings, which induced the Musulman to build that number
of entrances to his hill-citadel? The coincidence merits passing thought.
The second gateway originally bore on either side, at the level of the
point of its arch, a mystic tiger, carved on the face