Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/27

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19
MARATHA

weapons,*[1] says means the Portuguese, or else made in imitation of such imported swords. A kuttar, with a handsome steel hilt, disclosed the well-known name ANDREA FERARA (sic.). Sir Walter Elliot has informed me that, when a notorious freebooter was captured in the Southern Marâthâ country many years ago, his sword was found to be an 'Andrea Ferrara.' Mr. Sinclair adds that both Grant Duff and Meadows Taylor have mentioned that Râja Sivâji's favourite sword Bhavâni was a Genoa blade †[2] . . . . Eventually the whole array (of arms) was removed to Trichinapalli and deposited in the Arsenal there, and,after a Committee of officers had sat upon the multifarious collection, and solemnly reported the ancient arms unfit for use in modern warfare, the Government, after selecting the best for the Museum, ordered the residue to be broken up and sold as old iron. This was in 1863."

It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that "in 1790 Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General of India, entered into an alliance with the Marāthas and the Nizam to reduce Tipu to order, and it was agreed that whatever territories should be acquired by them from Tipu should be equally divided between them. Certain specified poligars, among whom were the chiefs of Bellary, Rayadrug and Harpanahalli, were, however, to be left in possession of their districts. Tipu was reduced to submission in 1792, and by the treaty of that year he ceded half his territories to the allies. ‡[3] Sandūr was allotted to the Marāhas, and a part of the Bellary

  1. * Ind. Ant., II, 1874.
  2. † The word Genoa occurs on several blades in the Madras Museum collection.
  3. ‡ The bas-relief of the statue of Lord Cornwallis in the Connemara Public Library, Madras, represents him receiving Tipu's two youthful sons as hostages.