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near his camp*. In a few short years the bravest and best disciplined army of the age had become a mob of cowardly and enervated debauchees. Not even the fearful lesson taught at Chaunsa had any effect. Haidar "In the rest of the Mirza, one of themselves, shall describe his brethren army were amirs only in name who enjoyed Government and rich jagirs without the slightest tincture of prudence, or knowledge, or_ energy, or emulation, or nobleness of mind, or generosity, qualities from which nobility draws its name. On the day of battle they were all mounted on cuirassed horses and clothed in mail; between me and the extreme left of the centre On the stood seven and twenty amirs, all having the horse-tail banner. day of battle, when Sher Khan marched out with his army in columns, of the seven and twenty horse-tail standards that were with these great lords, there was not one that was not hid, lest the enemy might see and bear down upon it. The soldiership and bravery of the amirs may be estimated from this trait of their courage. I reckoned Sher Khan's force at less than fifteen thousand, while I estimated the Chaghatai armyatfortythousand

—



heavy cavalry. When Sher Khan's army quitted their trenches two of the columns drew up before theditch,theotherthree advanced towards the army. On our side the centre was in motion to takethe ground I had marked out for it, but we were unable to reach it. In the Chaghatai army every man, amir, wazir, rich, and poor, has his camp followers (ghulams),; so that an amir of any note, if he has a hundred retainers, will for himself and them have perhaps five hundred camp followers, who in the day of battle do not attend their master, and are not masters of themselves, so that they wander at large and as when they have lost their master's control they are under no other, however much they may be beaten, back, oi face, or head, with mace or stick, they are totally unmanageable. In a word, by the pressure of the masses of these men the troops were quite unable to keep their ranks the camp followers crowding behind, bore them so down that they were thrown into disorder and the crowd continuing still to press on, some on one side, some on another, pushed the soldiers upon the chains of carriages. Even then the camp followers who were behind went on urging those before till in many instances the chains burst and every person who was stationed at the chain so broken, driven out beyond it, while the order, even of such as kept within, was totally broken and destroyed, and from the pressure and confusion not a man could act.



"

were matters more prosperous on approached, a cry of defeat was heard, and that instant a panic seized the men and before an arrow was shot from a bow they fled like chaff before the wind. The fugitives ran towards the centre. Here they found aU in disorder. The camp followers having pushed clear through the line, had disordered everything, and separated the Mir from the men, and the men from the Mir. But when to this confusion the rush of the terrified men flying from the right was added, the defeat was sure, and the day irretrievable. The Chaghatai army, which counted forty thousand men in armour, besides camp followers and artisans, "f- fled before ten thousand. It was not a fight, but a rout,

Such was the

the right.

state of the centre, nor

As Sher Khan's three columns



t ShagirdneEha.
 * Erskine's Babar,

I.,

188.