The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c25.3

c25.3

Bound Hedge. As an additional protection, such places were often surrounded by a thick plantation of thorny trees or an impenetrable screen of bambus. Some of the latter were of great depth and in the operations in Rohilkhand during the suppression of the Mutiny of 1857, our troops came across bambu hedges which a cannon ball was unable to penetrate. This was no new thing. For instance, Khushḥāl Chand, fol. 177a, tells us that when Muḥammad Shāh came in 1158 H. (1745) to besiege ‘Alī Muḥammad Khān, Rohelah, in Bangarḥ, he found “a great wilderness of bambūs round the fort, through which the wind even found its way with difficulty; quick-handed diggers and axemen were collected to cut this down and uproot it”. Again, in 1805 we found Rāmpur in the same province surrounded by a bambu hedge thirty feet thick (Thorn, “War”, 435). In the same way, it was in Bundelkhand the usual custom to protect a fort by a wide belt of thorny jungle; and in 1140 H. (1728) Muḥammad Khān, Bangash, when reporting to Dihlī his campaign there, speaks of these jungles as retarding his operations considerably.