Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/195

 HALF-BREED AND NATIVE SOLDIERY 143 As the flow of pay from the treasury dried up, the Portuguese soldiers and their half-caste descendants degenerated into a military mob, selling their muskets to native princes and stooping to every disgrace to fill their stomachs. In 1548 the King of Portugal was implored to allow war-service grants to the soldiers, " for they walk day and night at the doors, begging for the love of God. And if it would but end here it would be a lesser evil. But they go over to the Moors because they give them wages and allow them to live at their own liberty." What stipends they received they gambled away. The native infantry were disciplined and directed by Portuguese officers, but sometimes led by their own. Antonio Fernandes Chale, for example, a Malabar na- tive Christian, held important command under Portu- guese generals, and was raised to the dignity of a Knight of the military Order of Christ. Slain in action in 1571, he received a state funeral at Goa. In the previous year, 1570, the viceroy manned the defensive works of Goa against Adil Khan -with 1500 native troops under Portuguese officers, holding his little force of seven hundred Portuguese as a reserve to support whatever position might be hardest pressed. " I certify to your Highness," wrote Pedro de Faria to the king as early as 1522 about the Calicut troops, " that they are as good as ours " and are practised in shooting three times a week. The differences in drill and weapons were not so decisively in favour of the European sys- tem in the sixteenth century as they afterwards became;