

86 E. Maclagan — On Early Asiatic Fire Weapons, [JTo. 1 



the aid jf "the skilful Frank, learned in all the arts."* In a footnote Tod 

 adds, " It is singular that Chand likewise mentions the Frank as being in 

 the army of Shabudin in the conquest of his sovereign Pirthiraj." 



The note in Erskine and Leyden's translation of Babar's Memoirs, on 

 the passage above referred to, about artillery at the battle of Panipat, says 

 of the term ' FeringiM , " the word is now used in the Dekkan for a 

 swivel."f I am informed by Mr. Shaw, lately our representative in Yar- 

 kand, that in a book which he obtained during his residence in Turkistan, 

 relating to events in Yarkand in the beginning of last century, guns are 

 designated Firingi miltih. (Miltik is the word given for musket, in the 

 Vocabulary appended to Sir D. Forsyth's Eeport of the Mission to Yar- 

 kand in 1873. X K is perhaps used in a more general way also for fire-arms, 

 like our gun.) The same term, Mringi Miltik, Mr. Shaw mentions, is now 

 applied to Eifles. It may be inferred that it was for a similar reason that 

 in the other instances above referred to, in earlier times, corresponding 

 terms were used with reference to the engines and engineers, and then to 

 the first gunpowder artillery used in India. 



Alike in Asia and in Europe the earlier weapons of war continued, of 

 necessity, to be used long after the introduction of gunpowder artillery, and 

 along with it. The guns, few in number, were at first merely a small but 

 startling addition to the ordinary implements of battle. At Panipat, when 

 Babar's Mringi field-pieces were causing a new sensation, the smaller fire- 

 arms were not yet in use, and throughout the account of the fight he relates 

 how his troops poured in discharges of arrows on the enemy. When the 

 Zamorin's subjects had become familiar with powder and modern fire-arms, 

 as noticed above, still "in all fights", as Herbert goes onto say, "they 

 also use bow and arrow, darts and targets, granads and variety of fire- 

 works.'^ So of course did English bows, long after Creci, play the chief 

 part in fights in which cannons also were brought into play.|| 



In Europe the fire missiles of the earlier days were both used along 

 with modern guns and discharged by means of them. And the Greek Fire, 

 having its composition and effects modified by gunpowder led the way to 

 the later holies ar denies or pots de feu, and shells. Fire arrows even were 

 among the kinds of missiles thrown from the early small-bore guns.l[ 



* Tod's Hajasthan, II, 8. 



f P. 306. Also Dawson's Elliot, IV, 255* 



X P. 548. 



§ Some Yeares Travels, p. 302, 



|| Mr. Grant Duff, in his Notes of his recent journey in India, mentions that an 

 officer who accompanied him on his visit to the fort of Lahor (Jan. 1st, 1875) inform- 

 ed him he had had an arrow shot at him during the siege of Multan in 1848. (Con- 

 temp. Bev., July 1875.) 



IT Nap. Louis Bonaparte. Etudes sur le passe et Vavenir de VArtillerie, p. 43. 



