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the souarree, or equipage, of the chief reaches the ground. These 

 foraging parties are more destructive to a country than locusts, 

 and so bold and active, as often to overwhelm large villages: nor 

 are territories of friend or foe exempt from their depredations, fire- 

 wood and forage being allowed to be collected even from their own 

 villages; insomuch that I suppose there was scarcely a piece of 

 wood, or blade of grass or hay left in the villages, for the space of 

 twelve miles round the peshwa's camp, after two days continuance, 

 and a great number of villages were totally demolished. 



The safety which the Mahratta armies enjoy as to their com- 

 munications, from the multiplicity of their cavalry, insures them 

 such ample supplies from vast companies of banjarahs, or grain- 

 merchants, who hover near, or march with them, with immense 

 droves of oxen laden with grain, that they seem to be totally indif- 

 ferent to every other circumstance of encampment, except water; 

 and as to magazines of provision, or a dependence on the protec- 

 tion or supply of fortified cities, they seem unacquainted with 

 those grand objects of consideration to an European army. This 

 security gives a peculiar character to their camp and armies; for 

 so little danger seems to be apprehended from following their 

 camps, that shop-keepers, mechanics, and people of every profes- 

 sion, carry on their respective callings apparently as much at 

 their ease as in their towns. This gives a convenience and facility 

 to a military life perhaps not to be met with among any other 

 people; which, added to the simplicity of manners, and absence 

 of wants with the Mahrattas, accounts for their spending their 

 lives as happily in the field as other nations do in cities: hence 

 also they have a vast advantage over other armies, who, while in 



