Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 9.5.1

9.5.1

Let me just add a word on the subject of the opium given to the ass. One of the principal huntsmen assures me that it is a tale of the vulgar, and that the lion is sufficiently disposed to sleep without it when he has eaten to satiety. I observed that the great rivers are commonly without bridges. The army crossed them by means of two bridges of boats, constructed with tolerable skill, and placed between two or three hundred paces apart. Earth and straw mingled together are thrown upon the planking forming the footway, to prevent the cattle from slipping. The greatest confusion and danger occur at the extremities; for not only does the crowd and pressure occur most there, but when the approaches to the bridge are composed of soft moving earth, they become so broken up and so full of pits, that horses and laden oxen tumble upon one another into them, and the people pass over the struggling animals in the utmost disorder. The evil would be much increased if the army were under the necessity of crossing in one day; but the King generally fixes his camp about half a league from the bridges of boats, and suffers a day or two to elapse ere he passes to the opposite side of the river; when, pitching his tents within half a league from the bank, he again delays his departure so as to allow the army three days and nights at least to effect the passage. As to the number of people, whether soldiers or others, which the camp contains, it is not easy to determine this accurately;