Bernier’s voyage to the east indies.

205

Now to return to our march. When the great rivers, which in thefe quarters com-monly have no bridges, are to be paffed, there are made two boat bridges, about twoor three hundred paces diftant from one another; which they know well enough howto chain and fallen together. Upon them they call earth and Itraw mingled together,which preventeth the Aiding of the animals. The firlt palling upon, and the comingfrom it are only dangerous, becaufe, that befides the great crowd, which then com-monly throngeth, and the great confufion and embarafiment, it often happens thatpits or holes are made when it is moving earth ; and then you lhall have horfes andburthened oxen tumble one upon another, over whom people do pafs with an incrediblediforder; which would be yet greater, if all were to pals in one day: but ordinarily theking encamped but half a league from the bridge, where he Hays a day or two, andhe never almolt encampeth farther than half a league from the river on the other fideof the bridge, that fo the army may have at leaft three days and three nights to pafsmore conveniently.

Laltly, as to the number of people that is found in the army, it is not fo eafy a thingto determine it. It is fo differently fpoken of, that one knows not what to judge of it.What I can tell you of it in the general, that is molt probable, is this : that in thismarch there were at leaft, as to foldiers and others, an hundred thoufand horfemen,and above an hundred and fifty thoufand animals, as horfes, mules or elephants; thatthere were near fifty thoufand camels, and almolt as many oxen or affes, that ferve tocarry the grain, and other provifions of thefe poor people of the Bazars , their wivesand children : for they lug all with them, as our Bohemians do. Upon this meafure,you may reckon pretty near the number of the ferving people, fuppofing that nothingis there done but by the force of fervants, and that I, who am but in the rank of acavalier of two horfes, can hardly do my bufinefs with lefs than three men : fome fay,that in the whole army, there is fcarcely lefs than between three or four hundred thou-fand perfons. Others reckon more ; others lefs. Nobody ever told them to determinethe precife number. I can fay nothing of certainty, but only that it is a prodigious andalmoft incredible number ; but then you are to imagine, it is all Dehli , the capital city,that marcheth, becaufe that all the inhabitants of that town, living upon the court andthe army, are obliged to follow them, efpecially when the voyage is to be long, as this;°r elfe they inuft ftarve.

The difficulty is to know, whence, and how fo great an army can fubfift in the field,fo vaft a number of people and beafts. For that, we muft only fuppofe (which isvery true), that the Indians live very foberly, and obferve a very fimple diet, and thatof all this great number of cavaliers, there is not the tenth, no not the twentieth man,that in his march eats fleffi; provided they have their kichery, that is, their mixture°f rice, and of other legumes, upon which they pour butter when they are boiled, theya re content.

We are alfo to know, that camels endure labour, hunger and thirft extremely well,live upon little, and eat almoft any thing : and that as foon as the army encampeth anyWhere, the camel-drivers let them go into the field to brouze, where they eat whateverthey fight upon. Befides, that the merchants that entertain Bazars in Dehli , areobliged to entertain them in the'field ; and that all the fmall merchants that keep ffiopln the Bahars of Dehli, keep them alfo in the army, either by force or out of necef-j and laftly, that as to forage, all thefe poor people go roving up and down everywhere in the villages, to buy what they can get, and to gain fomething by it; and their| r cat and common refuge is, with a kind of trowel to rafpe or knock down wholehelds, to beat and waffi what they have there gotten, and fo to carry it to fell to the

11 army,