1 848.] The Matchlock of Koteli. 270 



The barrel is now piled smooth on the outer surface, and being 

 carefully cleansed from grease by scouring with wood ashes, is set up- 

 right in a hollow cylinder of brass, which is filled with a solution of 

 white vitriol in water. The cylinder is placed upon a slow fire, and in 

 two days' the veins of the damask are developed in high relief. 



Nothing can be imagined more elegant than the twisted damask of 

 Koteli. It surpasses I think that of Heraut. 



The straight damask being less tenacious than the twisted variety, 

 should be made of greater solidity. Neither can be compared for 

 effective strength with the gun barrels forged according to the English 

 process, in which the barrel being formed, is twisted at welding heat 

 upon the marfdril. But, there is no doubt that the Koteli barrels are 

 superior in strength as well as in beauty to ordinary matchlock 

 barrels ; for the whole of the metal becomes consolidated, and rendered 

 fibrous by the intimate twisting of its several parts. The worst feature 

 in the process is the want of care in the construction and finish of the 

 inner surface. The rude measures employed are quite insufficient to 

 assure us that the lips of the ribband have met in every part, or that 

 the square bits turned with no velocity by the hand have effaced those 

 irregularities of surface which endanger the life in loading. The bore, 

 not being a true cylinder, and the ball being seldom wrapped in cloth 

 or leather, it is impossible that the piece should carry with precision, 

 or that with any given charge, it should range so far as a fuzil of the 

 same calibre. 



Matchlocks are almost universally constructed with an oviform 

 chamber, which is harmless enough with the weak gunpowder of the 

 bazars, but dangerous when English gunpowder is employed. It no 

 doubt economises the charge. The barrel is made to swell abruptly 

 at the breach to accord with the shape of the chamber, (see plate, 

 figure 8.) 



The matchlock of Heraut is generally rifled, a process unknown at 

 Koteli, where however flint and detonator locks are made superior to 

 those of most Indian fabrics. The rifling process is very rudely con- 

 trived at Heraut. In a cylinder of hard wood corresponding in length 

 with a gun barrel, two parallel and spiral grooves are rudely chiselled ; 

 a collar of wood is formed in an upright post, opposite to another post, 

 into which the barrel is to be jammed, and within this collar are two 



