PLACES

VISHRAMGAD OR KURDU

Visramgad [Mr. E. H. Moscardi, C. S., Mr. H. Kennedy, and local information.] (T. Mangahv) or the Fort of Ease at the head of the Dev pass, also called Kurdu from a neighbouring temple of the goddess Kurdava, stands on a detached spur of the Sabyadris, about 2,000 feet above the sea and thirteen miles northeast of Mangahv. Kurdu was the place from where hailed Yesaji Kank, the Maratha nobleman of Sivaji. Kank was in charge of both the fort and the place. The best way to the fort is by a cart-track from Jita village eight miles north-east of Nizampur. The area of the fort is very small not more than seventy feet long by thirty-eight broad. The works are ruined. On the east is a dilapidated rectangular parapet wall twenty-four feet high. The other three sides are better defended by nature, and their walls are about ten feet high. Like most Kolaba forts it had but one gate; on the south-west five feet wide. Over the eastern bastion, which has walls ten feet thick, prisoners are said to have been thrown. Inside the fort are three rock-cut cisterns with pure and unfailing water. Other large hollows cut in the rock are believed to have been used as granaries. There is a four-cornered room on the southern corner of the fort, now inaccessible. It is about 100 feet higher than the rest of the fort, and was formerly used by a Hindu ascetic. The fort is said 'to have been built by Sivaji. It appears to have been occupied by troops during the time of the Maraiha supremacy to the end of the Pesva's rule and perhaps some years later. During the Maratha war of 1818, Visramgad fort, then garrisoned by a commandant and forty men, was taken by surprise by a detachment of the 9th Regiment under Captain 'Sopitt, on their return from Poona by the Dev pass. Large quantities of grain were found in the fort. [Bombay Courier, 6th June 1818.]

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