There are numerous bands of Dacoits, who set the authority of the peishwar at defiance, plunder travellers and merchants going up and down, make raids into the Deccan, and plunder the low land nearly up to the gates of Bombay.

Numerous expeditions have been sent against them, but the Dacoits know every foot of the hills.

They have numerous, impregnable strongholds on the rocks; which you can see rising sheer up hundreds of feet, from among the woods on the slopes; and can, if pressed, shift their quarters, and move fifty miles away among the trees, while the troops are, in vain, searching for them." "I suppose there is no chance of their attacking us," Charlie said.
"The Dacoit never fights if he can help it, and then only when driven into a corner, or when there appears a chance of very large plunder.
He will always leave a strong party of armed men, from whom nothing but hard blows is to be got, in peace." The journey occupied five days, and was most enjoyable.

The officer of the escort, as the peishwar's agent, would have requisitioned provisions at each of the villages; but Charlie insisted, under one pretence or another, on buying a couple of sheep or kids at each halting place, for the use of his own party and the escort.

For a few copper coins an abundant supply of fruit and vegetables was obtainable; and as, each night, they spread their rugs under the shade of some overhanging tree, and smoked their pipes lazily after the very excellent meal which Hossein always prepared, Charlie and Tim agreed that they had spent no pleasanter time in India than that occupied by their journey.
Charlie was received with much honor by Ramajee Punt, and was assigned a gorgeous tent, next to his own.
"People in England, Mister Charles," said Tim that evening, "turn up their noses at the thought of living in tents, but what do they know of them?
The military tent is an uncomfortable thing, and as for the gipsy tent, a dacent pig wouldn't look at it.