The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c8.75

c8.75

The Pendharis, as has been already indicated, were not employed for fighting but exclusively for plundering purposes. Their method has been described by an anonymous writer in 1819: ‘The climate and hardy habits of these plunderers render tents or baggage an unnecessary incumbrance; each person carries a few days’ provision for himself and for his horse, and they march for weeks together, at the rate of thirty and forty miles a day over roads and countries impassable for a regular army. They exhibit striking resemblance to the Cossacks as well in their customs as in the activity of their movements. Their arms are the same, being a lance and a sword, which they use with admirable dexterity, their horses like those of the Cossacks, are small, but extremely active and they pillage without distinction, friends as well as foes. They move in bodies seldom exceeding two or three thousand men, and hold a direct undeviating course until they reach their destination, when they at once divide into small parties, that they may with more facility plunder the country, and carry off a larger quantity of booty, destroying at the same time what they cannot remove. Fighting is not their object, they have seldom been known to resist the attack even of an inferior enemy; if pursued they make marches of extraordinary length, and if they should happen to be overtaken, they disperse, and reassemble at an appointed rendezvous; or if followed into their country they immediately retire to their respective homes’.¹