1) «.■ 



either in ready-money or land assignments, are smaller or greater, 

 according to the interest of the paughea : thus one has- a paughea 

 of fifty, another of five hundred, reckoning the whole at a certain 

 sum per head, with a distinct allowance for the chief, who again 

 distributes that allowance at his pleasure, giving to one twenty, 

 to another two hundred rupees per month. Properly speaking, 

 the paugheas should be composed of the horses belonging to the 

 government, or the chief, mounted by bargheers or hired troopers: 

 but this is not always the case, because silladars, (literally armiger, 

 bearer of arms), or horsemen with their own horses, often compose 

 a large portion of a paughea; and although every horseman, 

 throughout a Mahratta army, looks upon himself as company for 

 his chieftain, and always sits down with him, yet is the silladar 

 considered as rather superior to the bargheer. 



To the paugheas, as to the nugdee corps, there is an establish- 

 ment of civil officers to enforce justice between government and 

 its servants; but the multiplication of checks seems to have had 

 no other end than the increase of corruption; for not only is half 

 the grain and forage allowed to the horses embezzled, but horses 

 are changed, reported dead, and every species of the most flagitious 

 peculation practised with impunity, arising from the general in- 

 terest and participation therein ; insomuch that I have sometimes 

 been inclined to think that the government must have some mode 

 of reimbursement for these palpable defalcations, by withholding 

 the pay due to its troops; for, although they sometimes clamour, 

 yet from the ample profits of peculation the chief is generally wise 

 enough to keep his complaints within bounds, since his illicit 



profits are secure; and his tardy receipt of payment from govern- 

 vol. 11. u 



