Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c15.s7.9

v1.c15.s7.9

While describing the camp followers, the same chronicler tells us that there were "washermen, who are numberless here—they wash clothes", twenty thousand public women, "some ten or twelve thousand men with waterskins" who go seeking water, and place themselves along the road to give water to those who have no one to bring it to them;" and some "fifty thousand men who are like scouts", who have to spy the country in front, and always keep that distance (i.e. of four leagues in front of all this multitude), and two thousand cavalry on their flanks.²