The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c15.6

c15.6

Bernier tells us, 217, that the foot soldiers received the smallest pay: "and to be sure, the musketeers cut a sorry figure at the best of times, which may be said to be when squatting on the ground and resting their muskets on a kind of wooden fork which hangs to them. Even then they are terribly afraid of burning their eyes or their long heards, and above all least some *jinn*, or evil spirit, should cause the bursting of their musket. Some have twenty rupees a month, some fifteen, some ten". And again, 219, (a passage copied almost word for word by Gemelli Careri, iii, 244); "I have said that the infantry was inconsiderable. I do not think that in the army immediately about the king the infantry can exceed 15,000, including musketeers, foot-artillery, and generally every person connected with that artillery. From this an estimate may be formed of the number of infantry in the provinces. I cannot account for the prodigious amount of infantry with which some people swell the armies of the Great Mogol, otherwise than by supposing that with the fighting men they confound servants, sutlers, tradesmen, and all those individuals belonging to bazars or markets, who accompany the troops. Including these followers, I can well conceive that the army immediately about the king's person, particularly when it is known that he intends to absent himself some time from his capital, may amount to two or even three hundred thousand infantry. This will not be an extravagant computation, if we bear in mind the immense quantity of tents, kitchens, baggage, furniture, and even women, usually attendant on the army".