1376.] B. Maclagan— On Early Asiatic Fire Weapons. 59 



India seems to have freely adopted the new instrument of war, while 

 Persia was slow to use it, even after experience of its powers, and even 

 after beginning to make use of it, did not take to it very kindly. The brass 

 ordnance which contented the Indian commanders in Babar's time, and after, 

 was doubtless of a somewhat rough construction, as we read of Sher Shah 

 Star, in 1543, issuing an order to his people to " bring all the brass in camp 

 and make mortars (degha) of it", to bombard the fort of Raisin ; and they 

 brought their " pots, dishes, and pans," and made them into mortars.* This 

 shows at all events a ready appreciation of the value of artillery. Something 

 more pretentious than these extempore mortars, and more cumbersome, were 

 the guns which, very soon after this, (in 1551) we hear of Islam Shah 

 (Sultan Salim) taking with him from Dihli to Labor, after Mirza Kam- 

 ran's flight from the court of Humayiin, to take refuge with him. Starting 

 in haste he could not get a sufficient number of oxen in the villages near 

 Dihli, and " each gun was pulled by 2000 men on foot."f 



At this time, and for long after, Persia was not so far advanced. One 

 of the Jesuit missionaries, writing from Ormus in 1549, says of the Soldanus 

 Bahylonicus, the ruler of the territories adjoining, " qui modo Catheamas 

 appellatur", (that is Shah Tahmdsp) " Hie bona ex parte Persis imperat, et 

 in Eegibus potentissimis jure optimo censetur. Eius robur omne ac vis 

 copiarum equitatu constat, et peritissimis sagittariis. Nullis bombardis nee 

 aliis huius generis tormentis utuntur. Saspe cum Turcis, et quidem f elici . 

 Marte belligerant."^ They were not unacquainted with guns, and had 

 suffered from the Turkish artillery in the time of this king's predecessor, 

 Isma'il Safi. And Herbert relates that when the Turks under Sulaiman in- 

 vaded Persia, this same " Tamas, affrighted with their great ordnance, hyres 

 5000 Portugalls from Ormus and Indya, who brought 20 cannon along with 

 them, and by whose helps the Turks were vanquished. "§ The Turks were 

 early noted for their attention to gunpowder artillery, and the armament of 

 their forts seems to have been on a par with that which they brought into 

 the field against the Persians and others. At the time when Father Gaspar 

 wrote the above account of the defect of artillery in Persia, a French tra- 

 veller and naturalist, M. Bellon, says of the fortifications of Sestos, which 

 he saw in 1548, " Validis tormentis bellicis egregie muniti sunt, quae explo- 

 dantur (si necesse sit) in eas naves quae sine licentia effugere, vel in Helles- 



One passage runs somewhat in this fashion. " 3 p. m. Eiot increases. The military 

 has heen called out. He is at present standing opposite our door !" 



* TdriM-i-Sher Shdhl Dowson's Elliot, IV, 401. 



t Tdri7ch-i-Ddudi. Dowson's Elliot, IV, 499. See also notices of artillery at this 

 period in the Tdrikh-i-BasMdt, V, 131, and TdnJch-i-Alfi, V, 172. 



% Epistolee Indices, p. 38 (Ep. M. Gaspari Belga). 



§ Tho. Herbert. Some Yeares Travels, p. 289. 



- 



