This force marched out from Sherpur on November 21st, and next
day camped on the edge of the pleasant Maidan plain. Baker encountered
great difficulties in collecting supplies. The villages readily gave in
their tribute of grain and forage, but evinced extreme reluctance to
furnish the additional quantities which our necessities forced us to
requisition. With the villagers it was not a question of money; the
supplies for which Baker's commissaries demanded money in hand
constituted their provision for the winter season. But the stern maxim of
war is that soldiers must live although villagers starve, and this much
may be said in our favour that we are the only nation in the world which,
when compelled to resort to forced requisitions, invariably pays in hard
cash and not in promissory notes. Baker's ready-money tariff was far
higher than the current rates, but nevertheless he had to resort to
strong measures. In one instance he was defied outright. A certain
Bahadur Khan inhabiting a remote valley in the Bamian direction, refused
to sell any portion of his great store of grain and forage, and declined
to comply with a summons to present himself in Baker's camp. It was known
that he was under the influence of the aged fanatic Moulla the
Mushk-i-Alum, who was engaged in fomenting a tribal rising, and it was
reported that he was affording protection to a number of the fugitive
sepoys of the ex-Ameer's army.
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