millions were just such a cavalcade as followed Aurengzebe on his march from Delhi, and that the thousands were hardy warriors, unencumbered with any useless throngs of servants, and therefore moving to victory with rapidity and compactness. The subject of the mode in which an Asiatic camp is composed, is curious in many points of view; and we therefore willingly extract a passage, in illustration, from the amusing Memoirs of Lieutenant Shipp:

"My post of baggage-master being a situation which is, I believe, peculiar to India, it may not be improper to state its duties. He is a staff-officer, and when not employed in his particular department, is attached to the suite of the commander of the division, as, múch as the commissary-general, quartermaster-general, or any other staff-officer of the division. On the line of march, he is held entirely responsible that neither men nor baggage precede the column of march, and that they are on their proper flank, which is regulated by the general orders of the day. If the reader recollect what I before stated, that he may safely calculate ten followers in a Bengal army to every fighting man; and when he is informed that, according to calculations made in our camp, including the several native contingencies we had with us, our followers were not less in number than eighty thousand, men, women, and children, some thirty thousand following the army for what they could pick up, by fair means or otherwise, my situation cannot be supposed to have been a sinecure. It was truly one of great labour and activity. I had twenty men belonging to a corps of local horse.

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These men were provided with whips, and placed at my disposal. To attempt to talk the numberless camp-followers into obedience was quite out of the question; and, therefore, these, whips were for the purpose of lashing them into something like discipline. To the great number of human beings I have spoken of must be added fifty elephants, six hundred camels, five thousand bullocks, five thousand horses, one thousand ponies, two hundred goats, two hundred sheep, fifty ruts, one hundred palanquins, one hundred dogs, and one hundred hackeries or carts, presenting the following total:

100,400."*

According to this statement, which is confirmed by other narratives of recent wars in India, fifty elephants are attached to eight thousand fighting men. This is a small number when compared with the immense train of camels, bullocks, and horses; but it is sufficient for the purposes of mod. ern warfare. The elephant consuming a vast quantity of forage, and requiring great care to keep him in good travelling condition, it is not employed in services where other animals, less expensive to maintain and of less commercial value, would be equally useful. But there are peculiar circumstances in the march of an Indian army, where the elephant is indispensable. These we shall briefly describe.

* Shipp's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 256–258

The progress of an army through a country intersected with good roads is direct and speedy. In the newly-acquired territories of India, remote from European settlements, thick jungles, extensive bogs, and precipitous mountains offer impediments to an invader which only the most undaunted perseve. rance could overcome. In such situations, the pow, er of the elephant is called into action. In a “Narrative of the late Burmese War," the writer says, "the road lay partly through a thick jungle; but, with the aid of three elephants, a passage was forced." Here the strength which the animal ordinarily em. ploys in a state of nature was called into exercise. The impediment which pioneers could not remove without great labour and consequent delay, the three elephants speedily overcame. The high grass was trampled under their feet, the thick bushes yielded to their prodigious weight, the slender trees were broken off at the stems, the path was open for troops

to follow.

But the best roads are sometimes suddenly broken up by violent rains; and then they present a succession of deep ravines, with clayey banks, on which bullocks have a very insecure footing. The artillery cannot pass without the aid of the elephant. To every battering-train, a few of these animals are attached. They "always apply their strength in the most efficacious manner, either in pushing for. ward the guns with their foreheads, or lifting them up with their trunks when the wheels have sunk into a deep rut or slough."* Captain Williamson has more fully described their services in this particular: "Many of our most arduous military oper* Twelve Years' Military Adventure.

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ations have been greatly indebted for their success to the sagacity, patience, and exertion of elephants. Exclusive of their utility in carrying baggage and stores, considerable aid is frequently supplied by the judgment they display, bordering very closely on reason. When cannon require to be extricated from sloughs, the elephant, placing his forehead to the muzzle, which, when limbered, is the rear of the piece, with an energy scarcely to be conceived, will urge it through a bog from which hundreds of oxen or horses could not drag it: at other times, lapping his trunk round the cannon, he will lift while the cattle and men pull forward. The native princes attach an elephant to each cannon, to aid its progress in emergencies. For this purpose the animal is furnished with a thick leather pad, covering the forehead, to prevent its being injured. It has sometimes happened that, in narrow roads or causeways, or on banks, the soil has given way under heavy cannon; when an elephant, being applied to the falling side, has not only prevented the piece from upsetting, but even aided it forward to a state of security."* Elephants have probably been employ. ed in this manner from the first introduction of artillery into Asia. Bernier, describing the army of Aurengzebe, says, "Many of these cannon are so ponderous, that twenty yoke of oxen are necessary to draw them along; and some, when the road is steep or rugged, require the aid of elephants, in addition to the oxen, to push the carriage wheels with their heads and trunks."+ Heavy guns are often carried on elephants, backs, both in the native and the Indian armies.

* Oriental Field Sports, p. 43.

+ Travels, ii., 86.

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