84 E. Maclagan — On JEarly Asiatic Mfe Weapons, [j^ j 



From the account above referred to of the defence of Bhatnir, it would 

 appear that the fire was not projected to a distance, but thrown down from 

 above on the attacking party when they came near. The direct delivery of 

 hot matter on the heads of assailants, and of fire upon their engines when 

 they approached close to the walls, is a means of offensive defence which 

 must have occurred to most people, and for which special arrangements were 

 often made in the construction of defensible places : — 



Where upon tower and turret head 



The seething pitch and molten lead 



Keek'd like a witch's cauldron red.* 



The kind of defence is one which was by no means superseded by the 

 possession of means of projecting the fire or scalding matter to a distance - 

 but it was an arrangement of more prominent importance, and which receiv- 

 ed very special care and attention, in times when there was both more hand- 

 to-hand work in fighting, and closer operations in the attack and defence of 

 fortified positions. Sir Eichard Maitland's defence of his castle of Lander 

 in 1296 is commemorated in the ballad which tells us how he cast down 

 combustibles upon the roofed machine called the sow (a British version, of 

 testudo or musculus) when it was brought close up :— 



They laid their sowies to the wall 

 "WT mony a heavy peal, 



But he threw ower to them agen 

 Baith pitch and tar barrel.f 



a plan which was followed also, not without much art and skilfully 

 prepared appliances, by the Flemish engineer, John Crab, in the defence of 

 Berwick when besieged by Edward II. in 1319. Barbour relates how to 

 "throw Crabys cunsaiU" they rigged up a cram " rynnand on quheills", 

 that it might be readily brought to any part of the walls when required : 



And pyk, and ter, als haiff thai tane, 



And lynt, and herds, % and brymstane, 



And dry treyis that wele wald Tbrin. 



of which they made " gret fagalds" to be lifted over by the machine 

 and dropped, burning, on the assailants' engines, which were at the same 

 time laid hold of with grappling hooks and chains to prevent their removal. 



* Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



Hi jaculis, illi certant defendere saxis, 



Molirique ignem, nervoque aptare sagittas. (JEn. X, 130.) 

 t AuU Maitland. (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.) 



It was an exact repetition of an old proceeding. " Cupas teda ac pice refertas in- 

 eendunt, easque de muro in musculum devolvunt." (C^sar, de Bell. Civ., II. 11.) This 

 is what the defenders of Marseilles did, B. C. 49. 

 % Refuse of flax. 



