Anglo-Indian army. This consists of a whole camp of suttlers, who provide and sell to the best advantage all the necessaries of life, which it would be highly inconvenient for the soldiers to carry about with them, and which they cannot well do without; such as curry-stuffs, tobacco, rice, meat, and arrack (in addition to the allowance with which they are supplied by the commissariat), cotton and other cloths, grain for the officers' horses – in short, they furnish out an excellent market, where everything may be obtained for use, comfort, or luxury. These bazaars are always established in rear of, and at a little distance from the encampment; and the market men, with their families, Coolies, hackeries (carts), bullocks, &c. &c., wonderfully increase the apparent numerical strength of an Eastern army.
"The preparations for war in India," says Captain Munro,[1] "carry nothing hostile in their appearance, ease and comfort being far more studied upon these occasions than despatch. It would be absurd for a captain to think of taking the field without being attended by the following enormous retinue, viz., a dubash, a cook, and a maty boy; if he cannot get bullocks, he must assemble fifteen or twenty Coolies, to carry his baggage, together with a horse-keeper and grass-cutter, and sometimes a dulcinea and her train, having occasionally the assistance of a barber, a washerwoman, and an ironer, in common with the other officers of his regiment. His tent is furnished with a good large bed, mattress, pillows, &c., a few camp-stools or chairs, a folding-table, a pair of glass shades for his candles, six or seven trunks, with table equipage, his stock of linens (at least twenty-four suits), some dozens of wine, porter, brandy, and gin; with tea, sugar, and biscuit, a hamper of live poultry, and his milch goat. A private's tent for holding his servants and the overplus of his baggage is also requisite; but this is not at the Company's expense."
- ↑ Operations on the coast of Coromandel.
