1 62 : The Atlantic 



muzzleloaders. They soon replaced the breechloaders and bound bar- 

 rels. 



From the point o£ view of Atlantic history, the importance of the 

 preceding paragraphs is that even the early Portuguese ships that 

 crept around the coast of Africa carried explosive weapons. Crude as 

 these were, they were impressive enough to terrify the natives. Joined 

 with the use of helmets, body armor, the crossbow, they were usually 

 enough to tip the balance in favor of the European voyagers. 



When da Gama came to the West African coast and to the Malabar 

 coast of India, he discovered that the Mohammedans and the Hindus 

 aheady knew something about explosives. This they had probably 

 learned from the Chinese, who used explosives at least as early as 

 1161 when Yu Yun-wen defeated the Chin in a battle fought near 

 the present city of Nanking. The Chinese and Hindus in time devel- 

 oped jet propulsion. The East Indians used rockets. During the wars 

 in India, a British army officer picked up and improved upon the 

 technique and rockets were employed against the United States forces 

 in the War of 1812 so that when we sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" 

 we refer to the "rockets' red glare" without quite knowing what it 

 represented. 



Our interest is in the fact that the guns of da Gama's ships were 

 more effective and had a longer range than anything he had encoun- 

 tered in the Far East. 



The guns which the great explorers mounted on their vessels were 

 not very accurate and did not need to be. The sound of their explo- 

 sion was enough to terrify a native population that was encountering 

 Europeans and their ships and weapons for the first time. Many a 

 native leader was terrified by a salute ostensibly fired in his honor. 

 Then guns aroused much the same terror and many of the same 

 arguments that the atom bombs produce today. 



Still the early guns and cannon mounted on the ships were not 

 enough in themselves to account for the rapid and successful Euro- 

 pean occupations all around the world. From the point of view of 

 the explorer and colonizer, what was needed was not so much large 

 pieces as smaller weapons that could move with landing parties and 

 other bodies of invaders, but the smaller weapons were slower to 

 develop. 



How much small arms were needed is illustrated by the fact that 

 at least two great and courageous explorers lost their lives under 

 rather similar conditions because while the ships were equipped with 



