PAKTITION OF THE EMPIRE 179 of the dynasty of the Nizams of Haidarabad which exists to this day; and Asaf Jah found it expedient to make terms with the enemy and to submit to their system of levying the chauth, a kind of Danegeld by means of which the Marathas systematically extended their influence with less trouble than if they had immediately insisted on territorial cessions. By the skilful policy of Balaji, and his even abler son, Baji Eao, the earliest of the Peshwas the real lead- ers, who stood towards the hereditary Maratha raja much as the Shogan did to the Mikado before the Jap- anese revolution this system of blackmail was en- larged until it was accepted not only in the Deccan, but in Gujarat, Malwa, and even as far north as Bandel- khand. By this time some famous names, such as Pilaji Gaikwar, Holkar, and Sindhai began to appear among the officers of the peshwa, and save for old Asaf Jah, who was now the leading man in India, there was no corresponding ability on the Moghul side. Even this veteran, when the Marathas, by way of demonstra- tion, advanced to the very gates of Delhi, could muster only thirty-four thousand men to oppose them. The result was the cession of the whole of the territories between the Narbada and the Chambal to the suc- cessful peshwa in 1738. While the wolves of the Deccan were steadily work- ing up from the south, a new catastrophe from the north befell the vestiges of the Moghul empire. In the midst of the pressing difficulties that surrounded them, neither the emperors nor their ministers had
