PAST AND PRESENT. 
589 
This amount includes officers, non-commissioned officers, drum¬ 
mers and bugles. The pay of the private, is fifteen tomauns 
per annum, three of which are stopped for clothing. When on 
service, he has an allowance of two pounds of bread per day. 
The native soldier, from natural disposition and habits, cannot fail 
being adapted for war in any part of these oriental climates. He 
is inured to heat, fasting, thirst, fatigue, in short, privations of 
every kind, without a murmur. Indeed, his usual moderation 
is such, that bread, water, and a little fruit, dried or fresh, make 
a feast for him at any time. These people have been known to 
make the most unparalleled long marches, without refreshment 
of any kind, while in pursuit of the Bilbossi marauders. They 
are alike patient and active, are anxious to be taught any useful 
art, and emulous of excelling. When once brought to discipline, 
no men on earth can be more steady and obedient under 
arms, and their sobriety is inviolable. This last virtue is of 
the first consequence in a soldier. Hence, when we sum up 
all these qualifications for a soldier, and this adaption to climate 
and its resources besides, it may be seen, that were these bat¬ 
talions chiefly officered by Europeans, (and a continuance of 
British officers was understood at the founding of the system,) 
50,000 Persians so organized, would prove more formidable during 
a campaign in the East, than four times that number of the best 
European veterans. Captain Hart has put their camps too, 
into true military order. Before his judgment and authority in¬ 
terposed, they differed in no way from the ordinary style of 
even nomade encampment, being all dirt and confusion. But 
at present, their whole plan and distribution are exactly the same 
as our own ; but with one advantage, — the tents of the privates 
are more commodious, from having their sides three feet high, 
