54 B, Maclagan — On Barly Asiatic Fire Weapons. [jj j 



discussed) in a country supplying bituminous material, which actually was 

 used for fire missiles in that neighbourhood, favours the former idea, at the 

 same time it is a place noted for real scorpions, in modern as well as ancient 

 days. # 



Among the preparations for the great war on the plain of KurulcsTietra 

 it is related that Duryodhana, having fortified his trench with towers, sup. 

 plied the defenders of the towers with " pots full of sAikes and scorpions 

 and pans of burning sand and boiling oil."f And there are numerous in- 

 stances since that time of the similar use of the living animals. $ The Em- 

 peror Leo gives instructions, in his Tactica, for this employment in war of 

 serpents and scorpions. § Larger creatures, dead and living, less directly 

 hurtful but unpleasant, have often been thrown into besieged places for the 

 annoyance of the defenders. Human beings have occasionally been project- 

 ed in this way from the military machines ;|| and it is related that on a cer- 

 tain occasion an unlucky engineer was accidentally hurled into a fortress by 

 one of his own great engines.^" 



The introduction of improved devices for war missiles, and particularly 

 of gunpowder artillery, was, from various causes, slower in some countries 

 than in others. Some nations from their position and opportunities, or by 



* Rev. J. P. Fletcher, Notes from Nineveh, I, 164. The work published under the 

 name of Ibn Haukal also mentions both serpents and scorpions in the neighbourhood of 

 Nisibis ; (Ouseley's Geography of Ibn Haukal, 56) and, it may be observed, also mentions 

 another place noted both for naphtha springs and for a species of scorpion more destruc- 

 tive than serpents (p. 77). 



f History of India, J. Talboys Wheeler, I, 275. 



% Imperavit quam plurimas venenatas serpentes vivas colligi, easque in vasa fictilia 

 conjici. * * Pergamenae naves quum adversarios premerent acrius, repente in eas 

 vasa fictilia, de qui bus supra mentionem fecimus, conjici coepta sunt. (Com. Nep. Han- 

 nibal, X XI) Frontinus notices this incident among his devices of war, but seems to 

 make a mistaken reference to the occasion. " Hannibal regi Antiocho monstravit ut 

 in hostium classem vascula jacularentur viperis plena, quarum metu &c." (Frontini 

 Stratagemata IV, 10). Other instances in the East. " And Khalaf cast at them pots 

 full of serpents and scorpions from slinging machines." (Kitdb-i-Yamini, Memoir of 

 JSabaktagm. Reynold's TransL, 54). " Et prseterea habebant et ignem Graecum abund- 

 anter in phialis et ducentos serpentes perniciosissimos." (Itinerarium Regis Richardi, 

 XI, 42, quoted by lalanne, p. 44. 



§ lalanne, Feu Gregeois, p. 27. 



|| Yule's Marco Polo, II, 124. Ibn Batuta relates an occurrence of this kind at 

 Dihli in 1325. (Travels of Ibn Batuta, by lee, 145.) 



If A modern artist has improved upon this by a voluntary performance of the same 

 kind, according to a story which has appeared in recent English newspapers (Dec. 

 1875). The story is that a Parisian acrobat gets himself flung up to the high trapeze 

 by being shot from a mortar ; and that, on a late occasion, an overcharge of powder, or 

 some other small error in the adjustments, sent him a little further than he intended, 

 and landed him in the front row of the spectators. 



