URULI.

Uruli, a small village eighteen miles east of Poona, with in 1881 a population of 1587, has a station on the Peninsula railway which is at present the nearest station to the famous temple of Jejuri twelve miles to the south. The 1880 railway returns showed 20,819 passengers and 783 tons of goods. In 1817 Cornets Hunter and Morrison two English officers on the Madras establishment, on their way from Haidarabad to Poona with a small escort, were caught at Uruli. On being waylaid the two officers, whose escort consisted of one havaldar and twelve sepoys, took post in a rest-house and made a breastwork of their baggage. They defended themselves with courage for several hours and did not surrender till their ammunition was spent and the enemy had climbed to the top of the building and was firing on them through holes in the roof. It is worthy of mention, that, though before the attack the officers were offered a safe conduct to the British camp at Poona, they declined to avail themselves of an advantage in which their followers could not share. [Bombay Courier, 16th may 1818. In a general order by the commander in chief, dated Sunday, 11th January 1818, the capture of these two officers is thus alluded to: "This occurrence, while it evinces what may be done, even with a handful of disclipned troops, over a numerous irregular enemy, shows also the injury the public service may suffer at any critical moment by a failure of ammunition. His Excellency embraces this opportunity to order that no guard shall in failure be detached from its corps on any service beyond the frontier without its full amount of spare ammunition, the want of which in the instance above described has forced two brave young officers to surrender in a situation where perhaps they might have maintained themselves until relieved. The loss of the enemy was more than four times the original number of this small party and the commander-in chief desires that his approbation may be expressed to the sepoys who have survised. He has also to express his hope that Cornets Hunter and Morrison may, at no distant date, be restored to liberty and the service, an object which His Excellency will not fail to endeavour by every means to accomplish." Madras Government Gazette quoted in the Bombay Courier of 16th May 1818.] From Uruli the two officers were taken to Poona. In a letter dated 9th November 1817 they stated that though rather roughly used at first they had been well treated since their arrival at Poona. Between December and January they were carried on cots from Poona to Kangori fort about eleven miles south-east of Mahad in Kolaba. At first they were offered nachni bread but refused it. They were then offered rice and refused it also, when they were allowed wheat bread and a fowl a day. Some time after they were observed corning down the hill on foot under a strong guard. When they had reached the bottom, they were put into litters and carried to a fort about eight miles from Kangori, probably on the way to Vasota fort forty miles south-east of Satara. At Vasota the commandant fed them well, but so close was their confinement, that, till a shell burst over the roof of their prison during the British siege of the fort in April 1818, they had no idea that the English were near, nor till the commandant had decided to surrender, did they know the name of the fort in which they were confined. Before the British took possession, the two officers were allowed to show themselves on the walls, and were greeted by the Europeans of the mortar battery with three cheers. [Bombay Courier, 18th April 1818; Grant Duff's Marathas, 677-678.]