Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c19.s16.7

v1.c19.s16.7

¹ The ‘Daurayat’ or runners, the term applied to the bands who swept the country with their forays in those periods of general confusion, are analogous to the armed bands of the Middle Ages, who in a similar manner desolated Europe under the term *routiers*, tantamount to our *rabars* (on the road), the *labars* of the Pindaris in India. The Rajput Daurayat has as many epithets as the French *routier*, who were called *escorcheurs*, *tard veneurs* (of which class Gopaldas appears to have been), *mille-diables*, *Guilleries*, etc. From the Crusades to the sixteenth century, the nobles of Europe, of whom these bands were composed (like our Rajputs), abandoned themselves to this sort of life; who, to use the words of the historian, “ préférèrent la vie vagabonde à laquelle ils s'étoient accoutumés dans le camp, à retourner cultiver leurs champs. C'est alors que se formèrent ces bandes qu'on vit parcourir le royaume et étendre sur toutes les provinces le fléau de leurs inclinations destructives, répandre partout l'effroi, la misère, le deuil et le désespoir; mettre les villes à contribution, piller et incendier les villages, égorger les laboureurs, et se livrer à des accès de cruauté qui font frémir ” (*Dict. de l'ancien régime et des abus féodaux*, art. ‘Routier,’ p. 422).