The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c9.7

c9.7

The armour was worn as follows (W. Egerton, 112, note to N°. 440): — Depending from the cuirass was generally a skirt, which was at times of velvet embroidered with gold. Underneath the body armour was worn a *qabchah*,² or jacket quilted and slightly ornamented. Silken trousers and a pair of kashmīr shawls round the waist completed the costume of a nobleman of high rank. As to these quilted coats, we are told elsewhere (*Seir*, i, 624, note) that "common soldiers wore an ample upper garment, quilted thick with cotton, coming down as far as the knee. These coats would deaden the stroke of a sabre, stop the point of an arrow, and above all kept the body cool by intercepting the rays of the sun." Or as a still later writer tells us (Fitzclarence, "Journal," 143)¹: — "The irregular cavalry throughout India are mostly dressed in quilted cotton jackets; though the best of these habiliments are not, as I supposed, stuffed with cotton, but are a number of cotton cloths quilted together. This serves as a defensive armour, and when their heads are swathed round, and under the chin, with linen to the thickness of several folds, it is almost hopeless with the sword to make an impression upon them. They also at times stuff their jackets with the refuse silk of the cocoons, which they say will even turn a ball." This habit of swathing the body in protective armour till little beyond a man's eyes could be seen, gives the point to the scoffing remark of Dāūd Khān, Pannī, at the battle against Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān, fought on the 8th Shaʿbān, 1127 H. (6th Sept., 1715), that his assailant, one Mīr Mushrif, "came out to meet him like a bride or a woman, with his face hidden" (Ghūlām ʿAlī Khān, *Muqaddamah-i-Shāh ʿAlam-nāmah*, fol. 22*b*).