The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.9

c26.9

Approach by sap and mine. The word used for the galleries of approach seems to have been *sābāt*. This is defined by the Lucknow editor of the *Akbarnāmaḥ* (Vol. ii, p. 245, note 7) as a roof (*saqaf*) between two walls, which is also called "the path of safety" (*kūchah-i-salāmat*); *sābāt* is, he says, the name of a town in Transoxiana. Steingass, 638, explains it as a covered passage connecting two houses. The ordinary Hindi word for a mine is *surang* (Platts, 656) and *surang urānā* is to spring a mine. This mode of attack was known and practised. For instance Sher Shāh in 952 H. (1545-6) at the siege of Kālinjar advanced galleries (*sābāt*) to the foot of the wall, and then prepared *naqb*, which appears to mean here mines, and not the mere digging through of a wall (Budāonī, Text, i, 371, Ranking, 482). Again at a siege of Budāon in 963 H. (1555-6), the besiegers resorted to mining, and the commander of the garrison thwarted them by counter-mining, having detected the direction of their approach by putting his ear to the ground and listening, just as our engineers did at Lucknow in 1857, Budāonī, Text, i, 465 (Ranking, 599), and McLeod Innes' "Siege of Lucknow". And again, at the siege of Gurdāspur in 1715, ʿAbd-uṣ-ṣamad Khān made covered ways or approaches (*sābāt*), Yaḥyā Khān, 123*a*. Once more, at Allāhābād in 1719 the imperialists worked their way close to the walls of the fort "and began to mine under the walls", and Girdhar Bahādur, believing that the day was lost, made overtures through Muḥammad Khān, Bangash, (*Siwāniḥ-i-Khiẓrī*, 13). So also at the siege of Āgrah (July, August 1719) Ḥaidar Qulī Khān, who had under his command many Europeans whom he had brought from Sūrat, drove several saps towards the walls (*id.*).