The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.43

c26.43

*Communication between Besiegers and Besieged.* In Fraser, “Mil. Mem. of Lt. Col. J. Skinner”, i, 231, we read that at Hānsī the Mahrattas rolled letters upon arrows and shot them into the fort from the trenches, and received answers from George Thomas’ men in the same way, agreeing to give their leader up. In 918 H. (1512) at Gazhdawān, Bābar is said to have communicated in this way with the Uzbak garrison, (Budāonī, i, 444). Another case is at the siege of Qandahār in 1545: “The dwellers in the fort wrote daily accounts of Mīrzā ʿAskarī, and shot them down from the walls, twisted round an arrow”, *Akbarnāmah* (Beveridge) i, 466, line 4. The same mode of communicating, Manucci tells us, Philipps Ms. 1945, Part i, p. 251, was employed by the besiegers of Bhakkar in Sind (1658); one of these arrows struck Manucci on the shoulder, and he took it just as it was to the eunuch commanding the garrison.