Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | страница 720

680
BESIEGED AND BESIEGERS
Give an Indian soldier three or four pounds of rice per week
with a little salt, and on that, with the addition of a little
water, he will keep himself in good health, be active, cheer-
ful, and in condition to undertake forced marches for several
days consecutively, without suffering any inconvenience.
What a fund of latent force the Indian armies possessed in
this useful faculty for the purpose of harassing and annoying
an enemy whom they were afraid to meet in pitched battles,
but who, infinitely less abstemious, would soon have become
disheartened without a plentiful supply of substantial food
The art of fortifying, besieging, and defending strong-
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holds was equally neglected in India. The method generally
followed was to invest a town and trust to famine to force
the besieged to capitulate. To take a place by assault
appeared far too dangerous a proceeding tolndian tacticians;
consequently it frequently happened that a wretched little
fortified town, surrounded by nothing but mud w alls and
defended by a few hundred peasants armed with a few worn-
out matchlocks, was able to hold out for months against the
attacks of a host of assailants, who, tired out at last by the
perseverance of their adversaries, were obliged to ignomi-
niously raise the siege.
Even in recent times, though they
might have learnt by sad experience to what horrors a town
taken by assault is exposed, several Indian generals have
been known to shut themselves up behind walls of mere mud
or earth, and obstinately refuse to listen to any suggestion
of capitulation, treating the European besiegers with insolent
bravado, and fearlessly awaiting the chances of an assault.
It is true, however, that the honour of the commandant of
any fortress is at stake on such occasions. However advan-
tageous the conditions offered to him might be, he would
never willingly capitulate for should he be weak enough to
do so, he would find it difficult to escape the suspicion, on
the part of his king and of the people, that he had acted with
treachery or cowardice, and consequently his good name
would be for ever tarnished.
Nevertheless, the art of approaching a fortified position
by mines and entrenchments has long been known to Indian
generals.
When such works have been carried as close to
the main fortress as possible, the besieged and the besiegers
delight in insulting and challenging each other by word of
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