Note 35 — Chapter II · ÁHMEDÁBÁD KINGS. a.d. 1403–1573.

The Portuguese merchant and traveller Barbosa (a.d. 1511–1514) gives the following details of Mahmúd Begada’s cavalry: The Moors and Gentiles of this kingdom are bold riders, mounted on horses bred in the country, for it has a wonderful quantity. They ride on small saddles and use whips. Their arms are very thick round shields edged with silk; each man has two swords, a dagger, and a Turkish bow with very good arrows. Some of them carry maces, and many of them coats-of-mail, and others tunics quilted with cotton. The horses have housings and steel headpieces, and so they fight very well and are light in their movements. The Moorish horsemen are white and of many countries, Turks and Mamelukes, military slaves from Georgia Circassia and Mingrelia, Arabs Persians Khorásánis Turkomans, men from the great kingdom of Dehli, and others born in the country itself. Their pay is good, and they receive it regularly. They are well dressed with very rich stuffs of gold silk cotton and goat’s wool, and all wear caps on their heads, and their clothes long, such as morisco shirts and drawers, and leggings to the knee of good thick leather worked with gold knots and embroidery, and their swords richly ornamented with gold and silver are borne in their girdles or in the hands of their pages. Their women are very white and pretty: also very richly decked out. They live well and spend much money. Stanley’s Barbosa, 55–56. ↑