Raigurh : the fortress built by Shivaji where he was anointed Chhatrapati in 1674.
... stumbling stark fatigue, but onward pressed With glowing eyes. Far otherwise the foe, Panting and sore oppressed and racked with thirst And blinded with the blazing earth who reeled Backward to Raigurh, moistening with their blood Their mother, and felt their own beloved hills A nightmare hell of death and heat, the sky A mute and smiling witness of their dire Anguish,—abandoned now of God and... Mogul flood A moment. Ever foremost where men fought, Was Baji Prabhou seen, like a wild wave Of onset or a cliff against the surge. At last they reached a tiger-throated gorge Upon the way to Raigurh. Narrowing there The hills draw close, and their forbidding cliffs Threaten the prone incline. The Bhonsle paused, His fiery glance travelled in one swift gyre Hill, gorge and valley and with speed... and the higher prone descent Impregnably forbids assault; too steep The sides for any to ascend and shoot From vantage. Here might lion-hearted men, Though few, delay a host. Baji, I speed To Raigurh and in two brief hours return. Say with what force thy iron heart can hold The passage till I come. Thou seest our strength, How it has melted like the Afghan's ice Into a pool of blood." And while ...
... own hills, till by noon his forces had been lamentably thinned and not all their guerilla tactics availed against the pursuers. At last they reached a tiger-throated gorge Upon the way to Raigurh. Narrowing there The hills draw close, and their forbidding cliffs Threaten the prone incline. The Bhonsle paused, His fiery glance travelled in one swift gyre. Hill, gorge and... position of the gorge and asks him to crown his career of heroism by posting himself there with a picked company in order to hold the enemy at bay till Shivaji should return with reinforcements from Raigurh: "Say with what force thy iron heart can hold The passage till I come. Thou seest our strength, How it has melted like the Afghan's ice Into a pool of blood." And while he paused... Mogul lance ran griding through his arm... But the day was saved; for as he still fought, surrounded by the last few of his comrades, he saw a wave of cavalry plunge forth from the direction of Raigurh. And before he fell dead in a culminating grapple with the odds against him in the unconquered gorge, he heard friendly horsehooves ring upon the rocks behind, And in a quick disordered stream ...
... Ever foremost where men fought, Was Baji Prabhou seen, like a wild wave Of onset or a cliff against the surge. At last they reached a tiger-throated gorge; Upon the way to Raigurh.. Narrowing there The hills draw close... 36 Shivaji, in dire extremity, entrusts to Baji Prabhou the defence of that crucial gorge. Baji accepts the charge with an eloquent asseveration... Or Malsure is but a name,, a robe, And covers One alone. We but employ Bhavani's strength, who in an arm of flesh Is mighty as in the thunder and the storm. 37 Shivaji goes back to Raigurh to bring reinforcements?, leaving Baji and his fifty men to guard the pass. Presently the enemy is sighted in the distance - ...a mingled mass. Pathan and Mogul and the Rajput clans, All... "like a bull with lowered horns that runs"; the Mogul wall yields again, but now eight men alone are left, and none unwounded. Already, however, Shivaji is back with a formidable force, and the Raigurh lances glisten in the "glory of the sinking sun". Baji with the accession of Bhavani's strength has indeed saved the situation, although only three of the defenders are now left: Then suddenly ...
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