or three hundred at court. The troopers who formed the following of the amirs and mansabdars were entitled to the pay of twenty-five rupees a month for each horse, but did not always get it from their masters. Two horses to a man formed the usual allowance, for a one-horsed trooper was regarded as little better than a one-legged man. The cavalry arm supplied by the amirs and lesser vassals and their retainers formed the chief part of the Moghul standing army, and, including the troops of the Rajput rajas, who were also in receipt of an imperial subsidy, amounted in effective strength to more than two hundred thousand in Bernier's time (1659-66), of whom perhaps forty thousand were about the emperor's person. The regular infantry was of small account; the musketeers could only fire decently when squatting on the ground and resting their muskets on a kind of wooden fork that hangs to them, and were terribly afraid of burning their beards or bursting their guns. There were about fifty thousand of this arm about the court, besides a large number in the provinces; but the hordes of camp-followers, sutlers, grooms, traders, and servants, who always hung about the army, and were often absurdly reckoned as part of its effective strength, gave the impression of an infantry force of two or three hundred thousand men. There was also a small park of artillery, consisting partly of heavy guns, and partly of lighter pieces mounted on camels.
The emperor kept the control of the army and nobles in his own hands by this system of grants of
