Storia do Mogor 374
Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 374
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374.1
[NOTE FROM THE ITALIAN OF CAVALIERE CARDEIRA. Pages not numbered, without Opening Sentence or Conclusion, inserted in the Manuscript at the Beginning of Part V. immediately after the Letter.] . . . according to the quality of those who receive it. The Christian artillerymen, as also the surgeons, are paid in the same way. All the said soldiers, captains, and generals, whatever their birth or position, are obliged to furnish sureties. Without this they will not be taken into the service. The thing is universal, and no one can complain. Nor is there any ground for complaint, the same rule being observed in the case of princes of the blood royal. When a trooper's horse dies, he is obliged on the same day to produce the piece of the hide bearing the brand before the officials who are told off for that duty. These men grant the trooper seven days' time for buying another horse. If he fails to buy one within the time his pay is reduced.
374.2
The Bakhshī, who is the commissary-general of the cavalry, holds reviews of all the cavalry stationed at court twice a year, at which times he examines and passes the horses. If he sees an old horse, or one unfit to gallop, or vicious, he gives the trooper an order at once to buy another within a fixed number of days. All over the kingdom are officials with the same name of Bakhshī, who are continuously employed on the same duty. When his Majesty orders that any general with his regiment, or any captain with his company, should be sent on the march anywhere, it is necessary for that officer to appear on the river bank within sight of the palace windows and parade the whole of his cavalry and infantry. Three days after the inspection he must begin his march. The soldiers are extremely careful, when passed thus in review, to appear with their full equipment, and to have their arms in the best order, for otherwise they would be discharged on the instant. Usually captains and generals keep in their stables one or two hundred horses, which are used both for show and service. On the day appointed for a parade they mount their servants on these horses; these men are also enrolled as soldiers. But only the true income and pay are received from the prince; and the officers have no other profit from these extra men beyond appearing at the head of some well-clad and excellent horsemen on the day fixed for the parade.
374.3
There are throughout the realm officials who look after what I have spoken of. However, those who are distant from the court do not conduct themselves either as loyal subjects or good administrators. They make a profit from the gifts and grants offered to them, and therefore neglect what they ought to do as a matter of duty and obligation. Thus men who ought to maintain, for example, fifty horses or so, do not keep in their stable more than four or eight. What is worse, they entertain not a single soldier, though the neglect is good for their purse. Some of these (? the horses) are marked with brands as above referred to. Throughout the world the vice is rampant of being ambitious for the acquisition of wealth. But in no part of the world is this so much the case as in the Mogul Empire and the rest of India. There our Italian proverb applies : ' The big fish eat the little ones.' Particularly is it true at the court and in the army of the Mogul, where the captains and generals observe no fixed rules in paying their soldiers, conforming neither to the rank they have granted them nor to the men's merit. The rank the soldiers receive is high in name, but as for the pay, it is never more than half what the rank indicates.
374.4
The soldiers accept anything and everything, being forced by necessity ; for if they cannot obtain military service, they have no means of living. Speaking generally, all these soldiers are badly paid and ill-satisfied, for what should be given them in eight months they do not receive in a year. What is worst of all, they are never paid the exact amount due, but little by little. Then they always have to take in the course of a year's service two months' pay in second-hand goods. In many cases they are kept two and three years in arrears. This forces the soldiers to borrow money at interest from the traders in the camp ; these lend it with the consent of the men's own captains and generals, with whom they then . . . [The paper ends with this uncompleted sentence.]