Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 4.4.2

4.4.2

The foot-soldiers receive the smallest pay; and, to be sure, the musketeers cut a sorry figure at the best of times, which may be said to be when squatting on the ground, and resting their muskets on a kind of wooden fork which hangs to them. Even then, they are terribly afraid of burning their eyes or their long beards, and above all lest some Dgen, or evil spirit, should cause the bursting of their musket. Some have twenty roupies a month, some fifteen, some ten; but their artillerymen who receive great pay, particularly all the Franguis or Christians, — Portuguese, English, Dutch, Germans, and French; fugitives from Goa, and from the Dutch and English companies. Formerly, when the Mogols were little skilled in the management of artillery, the pay of the Europeans was more liberal, and there are still some remaining who receive two hundred roupies a month: but now the King admits them with difficulty into the service, and limits their pay to thirty-two roupies.