GUNPOWDER. 



oil," considering it as an infernal composition prepared by that 

 sorceress. It is said to have been known in China, A. D. 917, 

 three hundred years after Constantine Pagonatus, under the 

 name of the " oil of the cruel fire;" and was carried thither by 

 the Kitan Tartars, who had it from the lung of Ou. This won- 

 derful and destructive mixture twice preserved the metropolis of 

 the Eastern Romans from the infidel armaments. The Greek 

 fire is much spoken of in all the histories of the holy wars, as 

 being frequently employed with success by the Saracens against 

 the Christians, During the Crusades, and in the reign of 

 Richard Cceur de Lion, we shall find, that it struck with dismay 

 the most intrepid Christian knights, until a method of extin- 

 guishing it was discovered by the French. By the following 

 description of it, given by Joinville^ who was an eye-witness, it 

 has somewhat the appearance of the iron rockets, still used in 

 India : he says it was thrown from the bottom of a machine 

 called a petrary, and that it came forward as large as a barrel of 

 verjuice, with a tail of fire issuing from it as big as a great 

 sword, making a noise in its passage like thunder, and seeming 

 like a dragon flying through the air ; and, from the great quan- 

 tity of fire it threw out, giving such a light, that one might see 

 in the camp as if it had been day. Such was the terror it oc- 

 casioned among the commanders of St. Louis's army, that 

 Gautier de Cariel, an experienced and valiant knight, gave it as 

 his advice, that so often as it was thrown they should all prostrate 

 themselves on their elbows and knees, and beseech the Lord to 

 deliver them from that danger, against which he alone could 

 protect them : this counsel was adopted and practised ; besides 

 which, the King being in bed in his tent, as often as he was in- 

 formed that the Greek fire was thrown, raised himself in his bed, 

 and with uplifted hands thus besought the Lord, " good Lord 

 God, preserve my people !" But the great terrors it occasioned, 

 the effects of this fire do not seem to justify, as a mode had been 



