Page:Shivaji and His Times.djvu/228

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208
SHIVAJI.
[CH. VII.


to recoup his strength and also to watch the route from Konkan (by the Tal pass?) The wounded were sent to Aurangabad. Late in November, he removed to Ahmadnagar, but at the end of December he was recalled to the scene of his last battle by the revival of Maratha activity in the Chandor range. (Dil 87, 89, 92.)

§7. Raid into Berar and Baglana.

We shall, for the present, pass over Shivaji's activity at sea and in the western coast-strip during the whole of November and part of December 1670 after his return from Surat. Early in December a Maratha force under Pratap Rao made a raid into Khandesh. Advancing by rapid marches, he plundered Bahadurpura, a village two miles from Burhanpur (the capital of Khandesh), but did not come closer to that city, because of the warning of Jaswant Singh, who had been posted there since September last. Passing into Berar, he fell, when least expected, upon the rich and flourishing city of Karinja, and looted it completely. Four thousand oxen and donkeys were loaded with the booty — consisting of fine cloth, silver and gold, to the value of a krore of Rupees, captured here. All the rich men of the place were carried off for ransom. Only the most eminent one among them escaped in the disguise of a woman. The other towns also yielded vast sums of money. That rich province, with its accumulated wealth of more than half a century of