The Number of Troops Engaged.

When we total up the list given by Nuniz of the columns that marched from Vijayanagar for the campaign, the amount is so huge that we pause in natural doubt as to whether the story could by any possibility be true: 703,000 foot, 32,600 horse, and 551 elephants, Besides the camp followers, merchants, and "an infinitude of people" who joined him at a place close to Raichur! It certainly demands a large strain on our credulity.

Let every one form his own opinion. I can only call attention to the fact that large armies seem to have always been the rule in India, and that certainly Krishna Raya had the power to raise immense numbers of troops, though whether so many as is stated is another question. His power to do so lay in his mode of government. Allusion has already been made to this, and Nuniz gives us interesting details. The whole empire was divided into provinces and estates, held by chiefs bound to keep up masses of troops fit for immediate service. It is, of course, natural to suppose that in this great war the king would have put forth all his strength.

To prove that immense armies were often employed by Indian kings, we have only to refer to a succession of writers. Barros notes the great power of the sovereign of Vijayanagar and his almost incredible richness, and is at pains to give an account of how these enormous forces were raised, "lest his tale should not be believed."

In the second volume of Scott's "History of the Dekhan," a translation is given of a journal kept by a Bondela officer in the reign of Aurangzib, an officer who served under "Dulput Roy" in A.D. 1690. Writing about Vijayanagar in former days, at the height of its grandeur and importance, he says, "They kept an army of 30,000 horse, a million of infantry, and their wealth was beyond enumeration."

Conti, who was in India about a century earlier than the war in question, told Bracciolini that the Vijayanagar army consisted of "a million of men and upwards."

Abdur Razzak (1442 A.D.) tells the same story, putting the number at 1,100,000 with 1000 elephants.

Twenty years later Nikitin states that the Kulbarga forces marching to attack the Hindus amounted to 900,000 foot, 190,000 horse, and 575 elephants.

The Sultan himself, independently of his nobles, took the field with 300,000 men, and even when he only went out on a hunting expedition he took with him a train of 10,000 horse, 500,000 foot, and 200 elephants. He states that the Malik ul Tujar alone had an army of 200,000 employed in the siege of one city. The Hindus fought almost nude, and were armed with shield and sword.

Even so far back as the time of Alexander the Great (about B.C. 320) the army of Magadha was computed by the Greeks as consisting of 600,000 foot. 30,000 cavalry, and 9000 elephants, though Quintus Curtius makes a much more modest estimate.

Lord Egerton of Tatton states that an army of Hindu confederated states, mustered for the defence of Northern indict against the Muhammadan invasion in 1192 A.D., amounted, "according to the most moderate estimate," to 300,000 horse, 3000 elephants, and a great number of infantry.

In A.D. 1259 a Mogul embassy was received at Delhi by an escort of 50,000 horse, and was led past lines of infantry numbering as many as 200,000 in their ranks.

It will be remembered how Muhammad Taghlaq of Delhi raised, according to Firishtah, an army of 370,000 men for the conquest of Persia, and when he wanted to destroy the inhabitants of a certain tract of country, he "ordered out his army as if he were going hunting," surrounded the tract, and then, pressing inwards towards the centre, slaughtered all the inhabitants therein. This implies that he took, when merely hunting, immense numbers of men with him. Shahab-ud-Din, indeed, declared that Muhammad Taghlaq had an army of 900,000 horse; and Nuniz, on the opening page of his chronicle, says that this Sultan invaded the Balaghat with 800,000 horse.This estimate was, of course, only according to the tradition extant in 1535.

Faria y Souza, writing in the seventeenth century, estimated the forces of Bahadur, king of Cambay, in 1534, as 100,000 horse, 415,000 foot, and 600 elephants.

As late as 1762 the Mahrattas are said to have had an army of 100,000 horse.

Nuniz gives details of the provincial forces of Vijayanagar, compulsorily maintained by eleven out of a total of two hundred nobles amongst whom the empire was divided, and the total of the forces of these eleven amounts to 19,000 horse, 171,700 foot, and 633 elephants.

Castanheda confirms other writers in this matter, stating that the infantry of Vijayanagar were countless, the country being of large extent and thickly populated, so that the king could call upon a million, or even two millions, of men at will. This writer visited India just at the close of the reign of Krishna Deva Raya. He states that the king kept up at his own cost an establishment of 100,000 horses and 4000 elephants.

As to all this, I repeat that every one is at liberty to form his own opinion; but at least it seems certain that all the chroniclers believed that the king of Vijayanagar could, if he so desired, put into the field immense masses of armed men. They were probably not all well armed, or well trained, or well disciplined, but as to large numbers there can be little reasonable doubt. 

A relic of this may be seen every year at modern Haidarabad, the capital city of H.H. the Nizam, where, at the annual festival known as the "Langar," armed irregulars in very large numbers file through the principal streets. They are for the most part a mere mob of men with weapons, and are not maintained as State troops, but they are brought up by the various nobles in separate bodies, each chief mustering for the occasion all his hereditary retainers and forming them into rough regiments and brigades.

As to the description given by Nuniz of the offensive armour of the elephants, which are stated to have gone into battle with long swords like scythes attached to their trunks, the story is confirmed by many other writers.

Firishtah's Narrative.

"to recover Mudkul and Roijore from the roy of Beejanugger, who, gaining early intelligence of his designs, moved with a great force, and stationed his camp on the bank of the Kistnah, where he was joined by many of his tributaries; so that the army amounted at least to 50,000 horse, besides a vast host of foot. The sultan would now have delayed his expedition, as the enemy possessed all the ferries of the Kistnah, but that his tents were pitched, and it would have been disgraceful to retract from his declarations He therefore marched with 7000 horse, all foreign, and encamped on the bank of the river opposite to the enemy, waiting to prepare floats to cross and attack them.

"Some days after his arrival, as he was reposing in his tent, he heard one of the courtiers without the skreens reciting this verse: -- 'Rise and fill the golden goblet with the wine of mirth before the cup itself shall be laid in dust.' The sultan, inspired by the verse, called his favourites before him, and spreading the carpet of pleasure, amused himself with music and wine. When the banquet had lasted longer than was reasonable, and the fumes of the wine had exercised their power, a fancy seized the sultan to pass the river and attack the enemy.... Warm with wine he resolved to cross immediately, and mounting his elephant, without making his intentions known, proceeded to the river, as if to reconnoitre, but suddenly gave orders for as many of his troops as could to go upon the rafts, and others to follow him on elephants through the river. The officers represented the folly and danger of precipitation; but the sultan, without reply, plunged his own elephant into the stream, and was followed involuntarily by the amras and their followers; on about 250 elephants.

"By great good fortune, all reached the opposite shore in safety, and as many troops as could cross on the floats at two embarkations had time to arrive, when the enemy advanced to battle in so great force as excluded every probable hope of escape to the sultan, who had not more than 2000 men ready to oppose 30,000. 

The heroes of Islaam, animated with one soul, made so gallant a resistance that about a thousand of the infidels fell, among whom was Sunjeet Roy, the chief general of Beejanuggur; but at last, harassed beyond all power of opposition by cannon-shot, musquetry, and rockets, which destroyed near half their numbers, the survivors threw themselves into the river in hopes of escaping, and Nursoo Bahadur and Ibrahim Bey, who rode on the same elephant with Ismaeel Adil Shaw, drove the animal across the stream, but so great was the current, that except the royal elephant and seven soldiers, all the rest were drowned. The sultan's rashness was heavily punished by so great a loss. He took a solemn vow never to indulge in wine till he had revenged his defeat; and then, throwing away despair, busied his mind in repairing this unfortunate miscarriage.

"As Mirza Jehangeer had fallen in the action, the sultan consulted with Assud Khan on what measures would be best to take in the present crisis of his affairs. Assud Khan replied, that as his loss was great and the troops dispirited, it would be better for the present to retreat to Beejapore. The sultan approving the advice, marched from the Kistnah to Beejapore, and conferring the dignity of Sippeh Sallar on Assud Khan, added several districts to his jaghire, and made him his principal adviser in all important affairs."