44 R. Maclagan — On Early Asiatic Fire Weapons. rjj . j 



that rose from the earth, (at places in China) turned in hollow bamboos in 

 any direction, which burned with a clear flame.* The naphtha gas of Baku 

 is said to be carried about in bottles,f as that of China is in bamboo tubes. 

 It is not improbable that naphtha tubes for hostile purposes may have been 

 suggested by the use of bamboos for the oil and for the gas in the modes 

 above noticed. 



Not alone on account of similarity of form, then, but with reference 

 also, it may be supposed, to previous uses of tubes for Greek Fire, and of 

 bamboos for discharging fire arrows, and for carrying petroleum and gas, has 

 the name canna been carried forward and applied to modern artillery. The 

 connection of bomb and bombarda with bamboo, however, is not one which 

 illustrates the derivation of the artillery terms from the name of the cane. 

 B6fx/3o<s, bombus, a hum or noise, is no doubt the origin of bomba and bom- 

 barda. And bamboo, (which is not a name it bears in its own countries) is 

 supposed to be derived from the same origin (via, bomba), and to have been 

 applied to it by the Portuguese, with reference to the noisy explosion of the 

 air chambers of the cane when burning. % This is possible, though the ex- 

 perience which occasioned the application of the name must be supposed to 

 have been very exceptional. 



For indication of the knowledge of fire-arms in India at a very early 

 period, reference has frequently been made to certain passages in ancient 

 books noticed by Halhed in his Code of Gentoo Laws. " It will no doubt," 

 Halhed says,§ " strike the reader with wonder to find a prohibition of fire- 

 arms in records of such unfathomable antiquity, and he will probably from 

 hence renew the suspicion which has long been deemed absurd, that Alexan- 

 der the Great did absolutely meet with some weapons of that kind in India, 

 as a passage in Quintus Curtius seems to ascertain. Gunpowder has been 

 known in China as well as in Hindostan, far beyond all periods of investiga- 

 tion. The word fire-arms is literally in Sanscrit Agni-aster, a weapon of 

 fire ; they describe the first species of it to have been a kind of dart or arrow 

 tipt with fire and discharged upon the enemy from a bamboo. Among 

 several extraordinary properties of this weapon one was that after it had 

 taken its flight, it divided into several separate darts or streams of flame, 

 each of which took effect, and which when once kindled could not be extin- 

 guished ;" (on which Halhed says in a foot note — " It seems exactly to 

 agree with the Feu Gregeois of the Crusades") " but this kind of Agni- 

 aster is now lost. Cannon in the Sanscrit idiom is called Shet-Aghni, or 

 the weapon that kills a hundred men at once, from (shete) a hundred, and 

 (gheneh) to kill." 



* Aug. 16, 1862. The reference to the Lettres JEdif. is not specific. 



f Beudant, p. 233. 



% Elliot, orig. ed., I, 345. 



§ Preface, pp. 1, li. 



