The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12.29

c12.29

Besides the women and children the army was further encumbered by a large number of animals. ‘The number and variety of cattle necessarily attendant on an Asiatic army’, write Forbes, ‘is astonishing; the expense of feeding these animals, as also the difficulty of procuring provender, is very great; and their distress for water in a parched country and sultry climate, often fatal. Exclusive of the Mahratta cavalry trained to war, were many thousand horses belonging to the camp-followers; the bazar alone required twenty thousand bullocks to convey the commodities of the shopkeepers, besides a number of small horses and asses. Some thousand camels were employed to carry the tents and baggage; but the elephants, proud of their distinguished elevation, were appropriated to some honourable service, or, covered with caparisons of embroidered velvets and scarlet cloth, decorated with gold and silver fringe, were destined to carry the houdahs of Ragobah and his chief officers.’³