The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.11

c26.11

The text of Firishtah is even more explicit as to the siege of Chitor (Lucknow edition, Maqālah ii, p. 257, beginning at line 22). A body of five hundred carpenters, stone-cutters, blacksmiths, excavators, earthworkers, and shovelmen were set to work to construct *sābāt*, “which are peculiar to India”. These men laboured at making *sābāt* and digging mines (*naqb*). “*Sābāt* is the name for two walls which are made at the distance of a musketshot; and under the shelter of planks and baskets which are held together by skins, the said walls are carried close to the fort. Then the matchlock men and the mine-diggers (*naqqāb*) come in safety, through the wide way between those walls, to the foot of the fort, and there they dig a mine and fill it with gunpowder. When the fort has been breached (*rakhnah shud*), the rest of the army reaches the spot by way of the *sābāt*, and effects an entry into the fort”.