doos are much to be commended for their
truthfulness as servants; for a stranger may safely travel alone among
them with a great charge of money or goods, all through the country,
having them for his guard, and will never be neglected or injured by
them. They follow their masters on foot, carrying swords and bucklers,
or bows and arrows, for their defence; and so plentiful are provisions
in this country, that one may hire them on very easy terms, as they do
not desire more than five shillings each moon, paid the day after the
change, to provide themselves in all necessaries; and for this small
pittance give diligent and faithful service. Such is their filial piety,
that they will often give the half of these pitiful wages to their
parents, to relieve their necessities, preferring almost to famish
themselves rather than see them want.

Both among the Mahometans and Hindoos there are many men of most
undaunted courage. The _Baloches_ are of great note on this account
among the Mahometans, being the inhabitants of _Hjykan_, adjoining to
the kingdom of Persia; as also the Patans, taking their denomination
from a province in the kingdom of Bengal.[236] These tribes dare look
their enemies in the face, and maintain the reputation of valour at the
hazard of their lives. Among the many sects of the Hindoos, there is but
one race of warriors, called _Rashbootes_, or Rajaputs, many of whom
subsist by plunder, laying in wait in great troops to surprise poor
passengers, and butchering all who have the misfortune to fall into
their hands. These excepted, all the rest of the natives are in general
pusillanimous, and had rather quarrel than fight, being so poor in
spirit, in comparison with Europeans, that the Mogul often says,
proverbially, That one Portuguese will beat three of them, and one
Englishman three Portuguese.

[Footnote 236: This is a strange mistake, confounding the city of Patna,
in Bengal, in the east of Hindoostan, with the Patans, a race of
mountaineers between Cabul and Candahar, far to the west of India,
called likewise Afgans, and their country Afghanistan.--E.]

In regard to arms for war, they have good ordnance, which, so far as I
could learn, were very anciently used in this country.[237] I have
already described the iron pieces carried on elephants. They have
smaller guns for the use of their foot-soldiers, who are somewhat long
in taking aim, but come as near the mark as any I ever saw. All their
pieces ar