54 



marauders receive no pay, but prefer a life of spoil and rapine to 

 any other profession : armed with spears and sabres, and provided 

 with hatchets, iron crows, and implements of destruction, they 

 enter villages already laid waste by the army, and deserted by the 

 inhabitants: there, as if a general pillage of grain, furniture, and 

 other moveables, had not been sufficiently distressing, the pinda- 

 rees deprive the houses of locks, hinges, and every kind of iron- 

 work, with such timber as they think proper; then digging up the 

 floors in search of grain, and demolishing the walls in hopes of 

 finding concealed treasure, they conclude by setting fire to what 

 they cannot carry off: although there is scarcely any thing that 

 does not turn to account in the camp-bazar, where a rusty nail is 

 taken in exchange for some article of provision. 



The number and variety of cattle necessarily attendant on an 

 Asiatic army is astonishing; there were at least two hundred thou- 

 sand in the Mahratta camp, of every description; the expense 

 of feeding these animals, as also the difficulty of procuring pro- 

 vender, 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 shop-keepers, besides 

 a number of small horses and asses. Some thousand camels were 

 em ployed to carry the tents and baggage; but the elephants, proud 

 of their distinguished elevation, were appropriated to some honour- 

 able service, or covered with caparisons of embroidered velvets 

 and scarlet cloth, decorated with gold and silver fringe, were des- 

 tined to carry the houdahs of Ragobah and his chief officers with 



