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land, denominated nukdee or tanhazc, which are assignments of 

 land resumable at pleasure. In the same manner as the mass of 

 the force of the Mahratta empire is thus composed, so the force 

 of the various chieftains is, in like manner, composed in a smaller 

 or greater degree of the same materials. Thus, for instance, the 

 general Mahratta force is composed of jaghiredars, like Sindia and 

 Holcar; of nugdee, or ready-money corps, as Shah Meer Khan, 

 and Buchaba Serolkar; or of Tankadars, as Bugwant Sihng and 

 other paugheas. Now all these different descriptions are again 

 detailed in the composition of the Sindian, or other jaghiredar's 

 force; that is to say, it contains every species of service: but 

 the number is generally far short of the quota stipulated by the 

 original feudal tenure. Although the nugdee or ready-money 

 corps are not looked upon in so respectable a light as those paid 

 in land, yet are the commanders absolute in the management of 

 them, and in the disposal of the sums they receive for their pay- 

 ment; which generally runs at a certain rate per man, and a fixed 

 sum for the commander. And, as in the management of these corps 

 the payment by government is usually very tardy, the command- 

 ers have recourse to every trick, to elude, if possible, the checks 

 by which government attempts to insure faithful service: such as 

 the appointment of a duan, furnavees, and other officers to each 

 corps, who are themselves guilty of the most scandalous venality, 

 in conjunction with the commanders; by which means it happens, 

 especially in the peshwa's service, that a corps of one hundred men 

 has seldom more than fifty effective, while the allowance of govern- 

 ment is reduced to one half before it reaches the sepoy. 



The corps of the paugheas, that is, commanders of cavalry, paid 



