Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c48.s7.7

v4.c48.s7.7

By this time it was well past noon. Holkar’s troops who had been up and in arms since day-break and working for eight hours under the burning sun of June in Rajputana, were at last overcome by thirst. Worn out with toil, raked by De Boigne’s guns to which they were no longer able to reply, and dying of thirst with no hope of water supply, the Holkarian army now broke up rapidly. As their Rajah’s family chronicler admits, “Our troops began to cry out for water. In Sindhia’s campoo camels continued to bring skins full of water, but on our side there was no water. Therefore, the Gosāins and Bairāgis ran away. Munitions ran short in our five [four] battalions. . . Even the Maratha horse took to flight.”