o Chaule, at which place the Mahratta army were assembled
for their march. He was accompanied by Tim and Hossein, who were of
course, like him, on horseback.

A long day's ride took them to their first halting place, a few miles
from the foot of a splendid range of hills, which rise like a wall
from the low land, for a vast distance along the coast. At the top of
these hills--called in India, ghauts--lay the plateau of the Deccan,
sloping gradually away to the Ganges, hundreds of miles to the east.

"Are we going to climb up to top of them mountains, your honor?"

"No, Tim, fortunately for our horses. We shall skirt their foot, for a
hundred and fifty miles, till we get behind Gheriah."

"You wouldn't think that a horse could climb them," Tim said. "They
look as steep as the side of a house."

"In many places they are, Tim, but you see there are breaks in them.
At some points, either from the force of streams, or from the weather,
the rocks have crumbled away; and the great slopes, which everywhere
extend halfway up, reach the top. Zigzag paths are cut in these, which
can be travelled by horses and pack animals.

"There must be quantities of game," Charlie said to the leader of the
escort, "on the mountain sides."

"Quantities?" the Mahratta said. "Tigers and bears swarm there, and
are such a scourge that there are no villages within miles of the foot
of the hills. Even on the plateau above, the villages are few and
scarce near the edge, so great is the damage done by wild beasts.

"But that is not all. There are numerous bands of Dacoits, who set the
authority of the peishwar at defiance, plunder travellers and
merchants going up and down, make raids into the Deccan, and plunder
the low land nearly up to the gates of Bombay. Numerous expeditions
have been sent against them, but the Dacoits know every foot of the
hills. They have numerous, impregnable strongholds on the rocks; which
you can see rising sheer up hundreds of feet, from among the woods on
the slopes; and can, if pressed, shift their quarters, and move fifty
miles away among the trees, while the troops are, in vain, searching
for them."

"I suppose there is no chance of their attacking us," Charlie said.

"The Dacoit never fights if he can help it, and then only when driven
into a corner, or when there appears a chance of very large plunder.
He will always leave a strong party of armed men, from whom nothing
but hard blows is to be got, in peace."