256 APPENDIX II ing a suitable escort to attend her, and bade her adieu. She accordingly reached the Deccan; but Shamsher Bahadur, who was severely wounded, died after arriv- ing at Dig. Shortly before the occurrence of these disasters, Balaji Rao had marched from Poona. He had pro- ceeded only as far as Bhilsa, when, having been in- formed of the event, he grew wearied of existence, and shed tears of blood lamenting the loss of a son and a brother. He then moved from where he was to Sironj, and about that very time a messenger reached him from the Abdali Shah, with a robe of mourning. The Rao, feigning obedience to his commands, humbly dressed his person in the Shah's robe, and turning away from Sironj, re-entered Poona. Prom excess of grief and woe, however, he remained for two months afflicted with a harrowing disease; and as he perceived the image of death reflected from the mirror of his condi- tion, he sent for his brother, Raghunath Rao, to whom he gave in charge his best-beloved son, the younger brother of the slain Biswas Rao, who bore the name of Madhu Rao, and had just entered his twelfth year, exclaiming: " Fulfil all the duties of good- will towards this fatherless child, treating him as if he were your own son, and do not permit any harm to come upon him.'* Having said this, he departed from the world on the 9th of Zi-al-kada, 1174 A. H. (June 14, 1761 A. D.), and the period of his reign was twenty-one years. After the demise of his father, Madhu Rao was installed in the throne of sovereignty at Poona, and
