Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846 — John Shaqi
Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
History
Journal of a Cavalry Officer; Including the Memorable Sikh Campaign of 1845-1846
Humbley, W. W. W. (William Wellington Waterloo)
India -- Description and travel; Sikh War, 1845-1846
Let us next consider the quantity of provisions required for our
force; calculating the 9th Lancers at 800 horses (including officers'
chargers,) the consumption of gram, a kind of vetch, daily would be,
800 × 5 = 4,000 seers, or 8,000 lbs. = 71 cwt. 48 lbs. The reader may
hence form some idea of the quantity of corn required for 3,000 or
4,000 cavalry horses, or including horse artillery, waggon and private
horses, say 5,000, and there would be a consumption of about 440 or
450 cwt. of gram daily. Then each elephant consumes 30 lbs. of atta
(flour) cakes;[5] each camel public and private is allowed 6 lbs.
of gram, and a bullock 5 or 6 lbs. daily. The elephant likewise gets
forage, such as the leaves of trees; and if he can meet with the branch
of a tree he is all the happier, for with it he gracefully fans away
the flies from himself or his driver: the poor animal suffers greatly
from the mosquito bite. The Mahāwat, or elephant-keeper puts the rice
in a whisp of rice straw, making a kind of bowl for the food, which
is boiled. The camels, too, get bhoosa, or split straw, when it can
be procured, otherwise the leaves of trees: they prefer those of the
Imlee, Peepul, Babool, and Burh (fig-tree). The bullocks eat bhoosa or
karbi, the stalk of Joar or Bajra (the Holcus Sorgum and Spicatus).
If we calculate the quantity of grain consumed in an army of 10,000,
30,000, or 40,000 men, the result will be enormous, and we can only
marvel where such supplies are obtained.
The Duke of Wellington[6] when in India, often marched with 30,000, or
40,000 bullock-loads of grain, or 600,000, or 800,000 lbs. or 53,571,
or 71,428 cwt. His grace's plan was never to open these grain bags so
long as he could get supplies from the villages.
Let the reader imagine an Indian army of 20,000 men with its 60,000,
70,000, or even 80,000 camp followers, all of whom must be fed daily.
Again, the number of hackeries, or carts, with an army of 20,000 or
25,000 men, varies from 700, to 12,000 or more, (for much depends upon
whether there is a siege train), drawn by two, three, or four bullocks
each, carrying shot, shells, and stores, and moving at the rate of two
miles an hour, the whole line of march from the old to the new ground.
Allowing 10 doolies, or light palanquins, for every European troop or
company, for the conveyance of the sick or wounded men, there would be
80 required for the 9th Lancers, and as each dooly needs 6 bearers we
had 480 bearers in our corps alone. In a European infantry regiment
of 10 companies there will be 10 × 10 = 100; 100 × 6 = 600 bearers. A
native corps is allowed only one for a troop or company, but some extra
ones accompany the field hospital. Now such an army would have at least
5,000 dooly bearers, besides those which are required for luxurious
officers, who have been seen, though, I am happy to say, rarely, to
ride in palanquins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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