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The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11: Chapter IX

The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11

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Contents

Chapter IX

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I exclude from this heading what is generally classed as artillery, weapons of attack which were not carried by the individual soldier nor discharged by him without assistance. The three kinds of weapon included are I, Bows and arrows; II, Matchlocks; III, Pistols. Of these the first was without comparison the favourite weapon, the cavalry nearly all carried it, and the Moghul horsemen were famed for their archery. It was feigned that the Bow and arrow were brought down straight from Heaven, and given to Adam by the archangel Gabriel. Weapons were estimated in the following order. The sword was better than the dagger, the spear better than the sword, the bow and arrow better than the spear, (*Risālah-i-tīr o kamān*).

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The use of the bow persisted throughout the 18th century, in spite of fire-arms having become more common, better made, and their handling better understood. Nay, somewhat to our astonishment, we read in W. Forbes Mitchell's "Reminiscences of the Great Mutiny," p. 76, that he saw the bow used by the rebels at the second relief of Lakhnau in Nov. 1857. "In the force defending the Shah Najaf, in addition to the regular army, there was a large body of archers on the walls, armed with bows and arrows, which they discharged with great force and precision, and on a serjeant of the 93rd raising his head above a wall, an arrow was shot right through his feather bonnet. One man raising his head for an instant above the wall got an arrow right through his brain, the shaft projecting more than a foot out at the back of his head. In revenge the men gave a volley. One unfortunate man exposed himself a little too long and before he could get down into shelter again, an arrow was sent right through his heart, passing clean through his body and falling on the ground a few yards behind him. He leaped about six feet into the air, and fell stone-dead."

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One would have thought this to be the last occasion on which the bow was used in serious fighting by any but the merest savages. But Mrs. Bishop, writing from Chefoo on the 18th Oct. 1894 (St. James' Gazette, Dec. 1st 1894), speaks of meeting large numbers of carts "loaded with new bows and arrows, with which to equip the Banner men of the capital (Pekin)." And this in the days of Krupp and Maxim guns!

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The Matchlock, a cumbrous and probably ineffective weapon, was left mainly for the infantry. Pistols seem to have been rarities.

I. Bows

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The Moghul bowmen were considered to be especially expert with their weapon; as Bernier, 48, "a horseman shooting six times before a musketeer can fire twice." The word *oqchī* quoted by Horn, 108, from the *Akbarnāmah*, is hardly to be found in the later writers, those of the 18th century; an archer is styled by them a *Tīr-andāz* (literally, arrow-thrower), not *oqchī*¹. But that word is used by Anand Rām once in reference to Aḥmad Abdālī's first invasion in 1161 H. (I. O. L. N°. 1612, fol. 70*b*), though there the scribe has spelt it *aunchī*. Shakespear, 219, has what he classes as a Hindī word, *opchī*, defined as "A man armed with weapons or clothed in mail." May this not be a corruption of *oqchī*, an archer? This word, *opchi*, is used by Shridhar Murlīdhar in his poem on Farrukhsīyar, line 594, (Journal A. S. B. (1900) Vol. LXIX, i, 14, 39):

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¹ Pavet de Courteille, Dict., 68, اوق, an arrow.

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पिले ओपची तोपची तोपो घनेरे *Pile opchī topchī topo ghanere.*

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“Gathered archers, gunners, guns, without end.” Of course, this may be simply the reduplication so common in Indian vernaculars, such as *khānā-wānā*, food, *pānī-wānī*, water. Mḥd Qāsim, Aurangābādī, *Aḥwāl-ul-khawāqīn*, 288*a*, and a rather later writer, Khair-ud-dīn (c. 1203 H.), *‘Ibratnāmah*, 105, have *kamāndār* (bow-holder) for archer.

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*Charkh*. In the *Jahān kushāe Nādirī* of Mirzā Mahdī, p. 233, (year 1151 H.) we have a reference to the *Charkhchi-bāshī*, or head of the *charkh* men. W. Jones, “Nader Chah”, ii, 66, renders this by “maitre de l’artillerie”, and is followed by the German translator, 293. Steingass has neither *charkhchi* nor *charkhchi-bāshī*. *Charkh* has many meanings: among them being “a wheel,” “a cart,” “a crossbow.” Here I suppose we ought to render *charkh* by “cross-bow”, and not by “artillery.” *Charkhchī* is to be found in the *Mujmil-ut-tārīkh ba‘d Nādiriyah*, p. 95, line 13.

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*Kamān*. The Moghul bow (*kamān*) was about 4 feet long, and generally shaped in a double curve. The bow was of horn, wood, bambū, ivory, and sometimes of steel (Egerton, 81, note to N°. 80). Two of these steel bows, in the Emperor of Russia’s collection at Zarkoe Selo, belonged to the emperor, Bahādur Shāh (1708—1712); they bear verses in his honour and are covered with rich gold damascened work (Egerton, 114, note to N°. 457). The grip was generally covered with velvet. Mr. Egerton, 144, describes the Persian bow in detail, and the same description applies, there can be little doubt, to the bows used in India, for there they copied everything Persian, and in fact many of the principal officers were themselves Persians.

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Mr. Egerton says “the concave side of the bow (the convex when strung) was lined with several strings of thick catgut to give it elasticity and force. The belly is made of buffalo or wild goats’ horn, jet black and of a fine polish; glued to this is a thin slip of hard, tough wood. The ends are fashioned to represent snakes' heads. The horn is left plain, while the wooden back is decorated with rich arabesques of birds, flowers or fruit intermingled with gilding.” Captain Thomas Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports”, 87, describes thus the construction of the Indian bows kept for show or amusement, and also carried by travellers. They were of buffalo horn in two pieces curved exactly alike, each having a wooden tip for the receipt of the string; their other ends were brought together and fastened to a strong piece of wood that served as a centre and was gripped by the left hand. After being neatly fitted, they were covered with a size made of animal fibres, after which very fine tow was wrapped round, laid on thin and smooth. They were then painted and varnished.

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*The notch.* The notches at the ends into which the string was fixed were called *goshah* (Steingass, 1104), literally “corner,” also *sūfār* (*Dastūr ul Inshā*, 228, Steingass 709). The latter word is used in *Aḥwāl-ul-khawāqin* (c. 1147 H.), fol. 12*a*.

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*The string.* This was called either *zih* or *chillah*. Hindī names are *rodā*¹, Shak., 1195, catgut, a sinew used as a bow-string, and *panach* or *panchak* (id. 552, 553). Bow strings were made of strong threads of white silk laid together until of the thickness of a goose quill. Whipping of the same material was then bound firmly round for a length of three or four inches at the centre, and to this middle piece large loops of scarlet or other colour were attached by a curious knot. These gaudy loops formed a striking contrast to the white silk (Egerton, 144). Captain Williamson, on the contrary, says, p. 87, that the string was composed of numerous thin catguts laid together without twirling, then lapped with silk in the middle and at the ends.

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¹ *Rodā*, a bow string, is in Steingass, 592. Is it Persian or Hindi or both?

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*The finger stall.* This was called *zihgīr* (Steingass 631), bow-string holder, or *shast* (id. 743). It was also styled *Shast-āwez* (Anand Rām, *Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol, 155*b*, 182*a*). Of this last the etymology would be *shast*, the thumb, *āwez*, attached or fastened to, that is, a thumb-stall. Blochmann, *Āīn*, i, 111, Nº. 42, and note 3, says the *shast-āwez* was a weapon resembling the *girih-kushā*, Nº. 43, that is, a kind of spear. He has no figure of it. May he not have been mistaken, and is not Anand Rām’s direct assertion to be preferred?

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The bowman drew with his thumb only, the bent forefinger being merely pressed on one side of the arrow nock to secure it from falling, or as Dr. Weissenberg (quoting v. Luschau) says, p. 52, the forefinger was pressed on the nail of the thumb to strengthen the pull without increasing the exertion. To prevent the flesh being torn by the bow string the *zihgīr* had been invented (Egerton, 114). It was a broad ring, and according to a man’s rank and means was of precious stone, crystal, jade, ivory, horn, fishbone, gold or iron. A very valuable *zihgīr*, part of the Lāhor booty, one that had belonged to Lord Dalhousie, is described in the “Daily Telegraph” of the 10th November 1898. It was formed of a single emerald and was 2 3/8 inches across at the widest part and 1 1/4 inches in depth. It bore an inscription which is thus translated: “For a bow ring for the King of Kings, Nādir, Lord of the Conjunction, from the Jewel House it was selected, 1152” (= A.D. 1739). From the date and the wording of this inscription it is to be inferred that it was part of the spoil carried off from Dihli. How it found its way back to Lāhor we do not know. Sometimes two thimbles were worn instead of a *zihgīr*, on the first and second fingers of the right hand. Upon the inside of this ring (the *zihgīr*), which projected half an inch, the string rested when the bow was drawn; on the outside the ring was only half the breadth, and in loosing the arrow the archer straightened his thumb, which set the arrow free. (Egerton, 114, quoting the *Book of Archery*, 136). By the use of the ring the distance to which an arrow could be shot was increased. But its use required skill and practice; the Hindūs used instead a thumbstall of leather (*Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 155*b*). These rings with a spare string were usually carried in a small box suspended at the man's side (Egerton, 114). Dr. S. Weissenberg, of Elisabethgrad, Russia, has devoted an article to these rings in the *Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien*, Band XXV (1895) pp. 50—56, where he gives figures of eight of them. He divides them into two classes 1) cylindrical, 2) with tongue-like projection. Those described by him are of bone or stone, and six out of thirteen were found in the ruins of Sarae, a former capital of the Qipchāq. See also a thumb ring of ivory (now in the Nuremberg museum) figured on the plate at p. 887 of A. Demmin, "Die Kriegswaffen", 4th ed., 1893.

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*Takhsh kamān*. This is N°. 13 of the *Āīn* i, 110, and it is described by Blochmann, p. v, as a small bow. It is shown in figure N°. 12 of plate xii. Steingass, 288, defines *takhsh* as a cross-bow, an arrow, a rocket.

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*Kamān-i-gurohah*. This was a pellet-bow, identical, I presume, with the modern *gulel*, with which boys scare birds from the ripening crops. It is N°. 38 in the *Āīn* i, 111 and appears as N°. 32 of plate xiii. Steingass, 1085, has for *guroha*, a ball or spherical figure.

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*Gobhan*. The sling, *Āīn* i, 111, N°. 45 and plate xiii, N°. 38, may as well be included here. The form in Shakespear 1727, is *gophan*. Khāfī Khān, ii, 656, uses the word *sang-i-falākhan* for the slings brought by the villagers who assembled in 1710 to aid in the defence of Jalālābād town against the Sikhs led by Bandah. Steingass, 936, has فلاخن ,فلاخان ,فلاسنگ ,*falākhan, falākhān, falāsang*, a sling.

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*Kamthah, kamanth*. This is the long bow of the Bhīls. We find it named in the *Āīn* list, i, 111, as N°. 39 under the first form; the second is that used by Anand Rām, Mukhliṣ, *Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ*, fol. 184*b*. Blochmann, p. x, in describing fig. 33 of his plate xiii confounds the *kamtha* with the *Kamān-i-guroha* or pellet bow. I think this must be wrong. Steingass, 1051, has a word *kamnait*, an archer, which he thinks might be from P. *kamān*, bow, plus Sanskrit, *netā*, owner. The word might, with more probability, be connected with the above words *kamtha* or *kamanth*, just as *dhalait*, a man with a shield, comes from *dhāl*, a shield; or *gorait*, a watchman, from *agornā*, to watch. According to Shakespear, 2258, *kamthā* is Hindī for a bow of bambu.

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The Bhīls held the bow by the foot, drawing the string (*chillah*) with the hand, and shooting so strongly that their arrows could penetrate an elephants’ hide. W. Egerton, 75, quoting Tod’s “Rajpoot Tribes” (a reference which I have failed in verifying) says the principal weapon of the Bhīls was the *kamptī* or bambū bow, with a string made of a thin strip of the elastic bark of the bambu. In their quiver were sixty barbed arrows each a yard long, those intended for striking fish having heads which came off the shaft on striking the fish. A long line connected this head and the shaft, so that the shaft remained on the water by way of a float.

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*Nāwak*. This was a pipe through which an arrow was shot. As I understand it, this was either a cross-bow, or formed in some way a part of the ordinary bow. It was not, I think, a mere blow-pipe, like those used by the Malays for their poisoned arrows, as mentioned by Egerton, 97, 98, Nos 263—268. Those specimens of the pipe are 6 feet 6 inches to 7 feet 6 inches long, and the arrows used with them 12 inches long. The *nāwak* is N°. 14 of the *Āīn* list, i, 110, but there is no figure of it. The weapon was known at Farrukhābād in the 18th century (Journal A. S. B., XLVII, 331). Steingass 1382, has *nāo*, a trough, a pipe, and *nāwak*, dim. of *nāo*, a small arrow, an arrow for shooting birds, with notch on side; a tube through which an arrow is projected; a cross-bow; a reed or anything hollow.

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*Tufak-i-dāhan*. The *Āīn* has also a blow-pipe, which it calls *tufak-i-dāhan* (lit. mouth-tube), N°. 40, i, iii and N°. 34, plate xiii. Steingass, 314, defines this as a tube for shooting clay balls through by force of the breath.

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Arrows. The arrow (*tīr*) is given at N°. 15 of the list in the *Āīn* i, 110, and it is shown as fig. 14*a* on plate xii. Another name, *sihām* is found in the *Mirāt-i-Aḥmadī*, fol. 178*a*; it is the plural of *sahm*, an arrow, Steingass, 710; see also Lane, “Lexicon,” 1454, *sahamahu*, iii. Captain Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports,” 87, says that in Bengal there were two kinds of arrow shafts, the common kind made of reeds, and those used against tigers, made of wood. To the first kind the heads were attached by resin; in the second kind, a hole was bored and the head while red-hot was forced into it. Some arrows in the India Museum are 2 feet 4 inches long (Egerton 130, N°. 604). One as long as 6 feet, obtained at Lakhnau in 1857, must have been used with a large bow. The names of the parts of an arrow were for the shaft¹ P. *kilk*, lit. reed, Hindī, *sāri* (Shakes. 1285, also the name of a kind of reed); for the head, P. *paikān*, H. *bhāl*; for the feathers, P. *par*. The feathers were frequently black and white mixed (*ablaq*). Ordinarily the head was of steel, but the Bhīls used arrow-heads of bone.

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¹ In Budāonī (Printed Text, i, 418, l. 3) there is an expression, *katībah-i-bāsh*, which Blochmann marked as doubtful in his copy (now in my possession), without suggesting any alternative; Ranking, 537, substitutes *katāh-i-bās*, and translates “bamboo shaft.” I cannot find *katah* in the dictionaries, Persian or Urdū, unless it be a form of कठ *kath*, “wooden.” If so, “wooden-bambu” seems an odd combination.

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*Tukah, Tukkah*. — This was the name of an arrow without a head. One was said to have been fired in anger by Āʿẓam Shāh at his principal general, Zu’lfiqār Khān, at Jājau on the 18th June 1707, - Yaḥyā Khān, fol. 113*b*. Steingass, 819, explains the word as “an arrow without a point, but with a knot at the end.”

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In the 18th century the kinds of arrows in use among the Pathans of Farrukhābād (Journal A. S. B., XLVII, 332) were 1) *Lais*, Shakes., 1809, twig, practising arrow, 2) *qalandara*, 3) *kohar-tarāsh*, 4) *ghera*, broad-headed, 5) *nuktah*, or perhaps *na-kaṭṭa*, headless arrow, lit. non-cutting; compare Egerton, 137, note preceding N°. 710, as to the blunt, heavy arrow used in Sind, 6) *thūth*, or perhaps better, *thonṭh*, Shakes. 743, H. for beak, bill, 7) *ankrī-dār*, with a bent head, shaped like a saddle-maker’s needle (*ankrī*, a hook), i. e. barbed. In his time (1780—1807) Captain Williamson, 87, found some very broad arrow heads in use in the west of Bengal, towards Bahār. There was one of crescent shape more than four inches across at the barbs. Though they did not penetrate easily, yet when they happened to graze a limb, they cut desperately. When discharged among bodies of troops they were found to do amazing mischief. The following names of arrows are found in *Dastūr-ul-Inshā*, 228, 1) *gherah*, broad-headed, 2) *do muhānah*, two pointed or barbed, 3) *taraḥ-i-māh*, fullmoon or circular head, 4) *taraḥ-i-ḥalāl*, crescent shaped head, 5) *taraḥ-i-bādām*, almond-shaped head, 6) *taraḥ-i-toko*?, 7) *siḥ-bhālah*, three-spear headed, i. e. trident-shaped, 8) *taraḥ-i-khornī*, 9) *taraḥ-i-khār*, thorn-shaped, 10) *taraḥ-i-khākī*, Shakes. 974, epithet of a kind of arrow, what kind he does not say. James Fraser, *Nadir Shah*, 143, note, thus describes the arrow used for practising at the earthen target described a little further on. “The arrows for this exercise have the iron part quite round, about four fingers long, of the size of the reed until near the point, where they are somewhat thicker, from which part they taper gradually to a sharp point. The length from the thickest part to the point is from a quarter to one inch.”

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Symbolical use of arrows. — The pagan Arabs used arrows in a game of chance, Hughes, “Dict. of Islam,” p. 309, under *Al maisir*, الميسر. Divining by arrows was forbidden by Muḥammad, see Sale’s “Preliminary Discourse”, section v, and the Qurān, v, where the word used is zalmun (singular) azlāma (plural), an unfeathered, unpointed arrow. The mode of procedure is set out in E. W. Lane’s Lexicon, p. 1247, under zalamun, “he cut off”, section viii. The practice, however, survived in spite of the prohibition; and in 1544 we find Humāyūn getting into trouble with Shāh Tahmāsp on this account. He marked twelve of his best arrows with his own, and eleven inferior ones with Tahmāsp’s name—Erskine, “Baber and Humāyūn,” ii, 289.

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Shooting an arrow into the air is said by Portuguese writers to have been a recognized mode of declaring war in the Vijyanagar state and Malabar. The particular instance is of 1537 at Diū, where Bahādur of Gujarāt ordered an arrow to be shot into the air as a declaration of war—Whiteway, “Portuguese in India”, 249, note 1, on the authority of Castanheda, ii, 16 (reprint of 1833) and Correa, iv, 708, “Lendas da India”, 4 vols., 1858—61. I have not met with mention of this practice in any native author, and Major J. S. King informs me that he knows of none. Perhaps it was of Hindu origin.

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At the same place Mr. Whiteway mentions the gift of an arrow from the King’s quiver as a security for peace. The King’s quiver was also used as a symbol of authority (Whiteway, loc. cit.). The instance given is from the Mirāt-i-Sikandarī, where Humāyūn in 1537 released Bahādur Shāh’s minstrel, and bound his own quiver round the man’s loins. Clothed with this authority, every prisoner that the minstrel claimed as his relation was released (Bayley, “Gujarāt”, 389). Another instance of this practice is to be found in the Tārīkh-us-Sind of Muhammad Ma‘sūm, under the year 924 H. (1518), where Shāh Beg, Arghūn, gave an arrow to the qāẓī of Taṭṭah (Malet, p. 80).

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Quiver. The Persian name is tarkash: but I have found the Arabic word ja‘bah used once on fol. 59b of the Farrukhnāmah of Shekh Muhammad Mun‘im, Ja‘farābādī (4th year of Farrukhsīyar). It was generally a flat case, broad at the mouth, one side straight and the other sloping to a point, provided with a strap for carrying over the shoulder. This broad shape is due apparently to the fact that the quiver was used to hold the bow as well as the arrows, see plate xvii in B. M. Addl. 5254 (Rieu, 780), and the plate in Valentyn, opposite iv, 304. There must have been, however, separate bow-cases, *qirbān*, for they are named as well as the *tarkash*, or quiver, in Kāmwar Khān’s entry of the 21st Zūl Qa‘dah 1134 H. In the India Museum are five specimens, Egerton, Nos 367, 369 (p. 108), 460 (p. 115), 601, 602 (p. 130). Of these one is of an unusual shape, namely, cylindrical. Common quivers were covered with leather, more costly ones with blue or red velvet, and these were often embroidered on one side in gold or silver. These covers sometimes were applied to strange uses. During Humāyūn’s exile in Persia (1544), Shāh Tahmāsp folded up his carpet, so that no one could share any portion. Humāyūn would thus have been forced to sit on the bare ground, when one of his followers took off the ornamented cover of his quiver, tore it open and spread it as a seat for his master, Erskine, “Baber and Humāyūn”, ii, 294. The quiver is No. 16 of the *Āīn* list, i, 110, and it appears as figure No. 15 on plate xii. One of a slightly different shape from the usual pattern is given in Egerton’s plate i (p. 24), copied from that in Langlès’ “Monuments.” Here the quiver is the same width all the way down, having one side straight and the other shaped in two crescent-like curves.

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*The Leather Guard (Godhū).* This is mentioned in Egerton, 114, and it was worn on the left arm. That is, I suppose, if the shooter were not in armour, and thus already provided with a mailed glove and steel arm-piece. Hansard, “Book of Archery”, 137, speaks of one as “a quilted half sleeve of common velvet or fine cloth, which protects the arm from being bruised by the chord in its return”. The word *godhū* I have not been able to trace. Two Central Asian arm-guards, one of bone and one of iron, are figured by Weissenberg, l. c. p. 54. They are now in the Ethnographical Museum at St. Petersburg.

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*Paikān-kash*. This word is from *paikān*, arrowhead, *kash*, root of *kashīdan*, to draw out. The implement was shaped like a pair of pliers, and as its name implies, was used to extract arrow heads from the body. It is N°. 19 of the *Āīn* list, i, 110, and figure N°. 146 on plate xii. The *tīrbardār*, N°. 18, (if the reading be correct) was another instrument for the same purpose.

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*Target*. This was the توده, literally, heap, Steingass, 334, *todah*, Shakes., 700, *tūdah*. The latter is the present Indian pronunciation of the word. To secure a more perfect use of the bow and arrow it was usual to erect near an officer's tents a mound of earth, into which he or his men shot a certain number of arrows every day. It is referred to *en passant* by W. Egerton, 106, as a practice of the Rajputs, but its use was general and not by any means confined to them. For instance, we find this target in use by Nādir Shāh, who shot five arrows into one every afternoon. It is thus described by James Fraser, *History of Nādir Shāh*, 143, note, "Khak Towda is a heap of fine mould well sifted and beat strongly in between two stone walls. 'Tis five foot high, three feet thick, and from three to four feet broad. The front of it is very smooth and even, beat hard with a heavy trowel. One who is well skilled can shoot his arrow into to it quite to the head; whereas one that shoots ill (be he never so strong) can't put a third part in". In a general sense the word for a butt or target, or the object aimed at, was *hadaf* (Steingass, 1492).

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*Modes of Shooting*. We are told in the *Risālah-i-tīr o kamān* that in archery there were twelve maxims to be obeyed. Of these three required firmness, (1) Hold the grip of the bow tight, (2) Keep the forefinger firm, (3) When the arrow is let fly, keep the advanced foot firm. Three things required easiness (1) the left side should be kept easy (2) the left foot the same, and (3) the other fingers. Three things required straightness (1) the body should be erect (2) the forehead held up (3) the elbow straight. Other three things were single: (1) use one side, (2) use one eye, (3) keep both hands in one direction. An arrow could have seven faults: (1) too wide a notch, (2) the shaft to be *karm*?, (3) the head imperfect, (4) the head too heavy, (5) the top end and butt of the shaft hollow, (6) the shaft not straight, (7) the bow too stiff. In shooting at a horseman 200 yards off, you should aim at his cap, if 100 paces off, at his mouth, if 50 paces, at his saddle. By so doing you will hit him in the chest. A good archer needs to practise constantly with the *Lezam*, a bow with an iron chain instead of a string. There are three ways of gripping the bow, *Changal-i-bāz* (literally, “Hawk’s claw”), *muḥarraf* (diagonally, on the slant), *ma-rabbaʿ* (square), according to the length of the shooter’s fingers. The arrow should be held without moving, and the advanced foot kept flat on the ground. As you let fly at the mark, you ejaculate, “In the name of God”. Shekh Allahyār Sānī, *Ḥadīqat-ul-aqālīm* (ms. additions in my copy), under Bilgrām, speaks of one ʿAbd-uṣ-Ṣamad, a perfect bowman, who taught the author to shoot in three ways, 1) in the style of the master Ṭāhirī, 2) *qabẓahgar*, 3) *musht*. Until that time Allahyār had shot only in the mode of Bahrām.

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Captain Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports”, 87, says the bow was strung by placing one end under the thigh, and with both hands bringing the other end into due position, when the string was easily slipped into the groove made for it. Thirty inches of string was a common length, though some were longer. With a new bow it required a strong hand to bring the arrow up to its head.

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The left hand was placed opposite the right breast, just far enough from the body to allow clear action: the butt of the arrow was pressed to the string, the fore and middle fingers of the right hand were then drawn steadily, until the head was near the forefinger of the left hand. The bow was always held perpendicularly. Native archers rarely missed an object the size of a tea cup at sixty or seventy yards, and Captain Williamson at Lucknow repeatedly saw a man lodge an arrow in a common walking stick at that distance. The hill people of Bengal were also very expert with the bow. They would lie on their back, steadying the bow with their feet horizontally, and at a distance of two or three hundred yards send the arrow through a common water pot, not more than a foot in diameter. They could shoot kites flying, and indeed rarely missed their object.

II. Matchlock

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This was the *tufang* (Steingass, 314) or *bandūq* (id. 202)¹. Great credit is claimed for Akbar in the *Āīn*, i, 113, for the improvements introduced by him in the manufacture of the matchlock. In spite of these, that weapon up to the middle of the 18th century was looked on with less favour than the bow and arrow, which still held their ground. The matchlock was left chiefly to the infantry, who occupied a much inferior position to that of the cavalry in the opinion of Moghul commanders. It was not until the middle of the 18th century, when the way had been shewn by the French and the English, that efforts were made to improve the arms and discipline of the foot soldier.

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¹ The Madras Manual of Ad., iii, 915, has a word *tūpak*, a small cannon, a musket, which I have seen only once elsewhere, namely, in verse 60, line 2, of a Hindi poem on Nādir Shāh by one Tilok Dās (Journal As. S. B. (1897) Vol. LXVI, Part i, p. 10). Of course, in the above form the word would represent the diminutive of *top*, a cannon. But may it not rather be the Indian pronunciation of *tufak* (St. 314, another form of *tufang*, a matchlock)?

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The barrels of Akbar's matchlocks were of two lengths, 66 inches and 41 inches. They were made of rolled strips of steel with the two edges welded together. Both the barrels, (*nāl*, literally, pipe, tube, Steingass, 1378) and the stocks (qundāq, T. id. 970) were profusely decorated with the surface ornament for which India, like the rest of the East, is so justly celebrated. The longer of the two weapons could only have been used, I should say, by a man on foot. Part of the matchlockman’s equipment was a prong or tripod, called shākh-i-tufang, on which the gun was placed when about to be fired (Mirāt-ul-Iṣṭilāḥ, fol. 178a). Ashob, fol. 182b, calls them sih-pāyah, i. e. three footed or tripods. Seaton says, i, 207, that the prong was sometimes attached to the weapon. According to Bernier, 217, the prongs were of wood.

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I find in W. Egerton, pp. 83, 110, 111, 118, 124, 132, 133, 139, 145, about sixty specimens of the musket and the matchlock. The latter he calls toredār (Shakes., 702, H. a matchlock, from torā, a piece of rope, a gun-match). Thirteen of these guns are figured on plates iv (p. 51) and x (p. 114), and among the figures on p. 79. One matchlock is a miniature weapon, one a revolver with four chambers, one has a rifled barrel, five have flint, and four percussion locks, these latter obvious modern imitations of European models. The other forty-eight are types of the ordinary matchlocks. Of these the shortest is 4 feet 7 inches and the longest 7 feet in length. One, Nº. 671, length 6 feet 5 inches is called a wall-piece; if so, Nos 551, 584, 585, which are longer, must be the same. Two of the specimens have octagonal barrels, a third has a barrel not only square outside but having also a square bore.

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Guns of European make (tufang-i-farang) were much prized, but were only found in the possession of the greatest nobles. It was with one of these, as Mḥd Qāsim, Lāhorī, tells us, ‘Ibratnāmah, 352, that a slave seated behind his master, Ḥaidar Quli Khān, Mīr Ātash, shot Sayyad Ghairat Khān on the 8th Oct. 1720, in the onset made upon Muḥammad Shāh’s tents immediately after the assassination of the Sayyad’s uncle, Ḥusain ‘Alī Khān, Bārhah.

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To the end of the Moghul period the fire arm in ordinary use was the matchlock. The flint lock was little known to them, and, of course, the percussion weapon was never seen, not having been introduced even into European armies until the 19th century (H. Wilkinson, *Engines of War*, 67). The flint lock itself does not seem to have been generally adopted in Europe until the end of the 17th century (id. 67 ¹), and it could hardly have become generally known in the East until a hundred years later. It was not until regular battalions armed and drilled in the European manner, were entertained by the Mah-rattas and the Nawab Wazir, that the flint lock could have got into the hands of Indian troops to any appreciable extent. This seems borne out by the fact that of some sixty fire-arms catalogued by W. Egerton, fifty are match-locks, and only five fitted with the flint lock. A passage in M. Wilks, “South India”, i, 278, note, also shows that in 1751 the flint lock was an absolute novelty to the native armies of Southern India. Fitzclarence, 256, writing so late as 1818 confirms this opinion. He says “The flint-lock, an introduction of the Europeans, is far from being general, and I may even say is never employed by the natives: though the Telingas, armed and discipled after our manner, in the service of Scindiah and Holkar, make use of it. Some good flint locks, are, however, made at Lāhor”. It is true that Khair-ud-dīn, *‘Ibratnāmah*, i, 105, writing of 1173 H. (1759), declares that when Rām Narāyan, deputy governor of Patnah, was defeated by Shāh ‘Ālam, he left on the field among other things six thousand flint muskets (*bandūq-i-chaqmāqī*). This can be only partially true, and even then it must be remembered that, by that time, the importation of arms through the ports on the Hugli must have become active; and what might be true of Bengal and Bahār in the above year, did not represent the condition of things in places farther from the seaboard. In the Dakhin the introduction of the flint-lock weapon, owing to intercourse with the French and English, may have been somewhat earlier. At any rate, it is said that the 12 battalions of Gārdī, or infantry drilled and armed in imitation of the French sepoys, and commanded by Ibrāhīm Khān, Gārdī, at the battle of Pānīpat in Jannary 1761, carried flint-lock muskets (Ḥusain Shāhī, fol. 34b). And, if we may trust Ashob's memory, writing 58 years after the event, the artillery soldiers taking part in the riot of 1141 H. (1729) at the Jāmiʿ Masjid in Dihlī, were armed with flint-lock (chaqmāqī) muskets.

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¹ Voyle and Stevenson, Mil. Dict. (1876), 142, say it was invented about 1635, but not employed in England till 1677.

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The matchlock barrels were covered with elaborate damascened (koft-garī) work, and the stocks adorned with embossed metal work or with various designs either in lacquer, or painting, or inlaying of different materials. The stocks were at times adorned with embossed and engraved mounts in gold, or the butt had an ivory or ebony cap. The barrel was generally attached to the stock by broad bands of metal or by wire of steel, brass, silver or gold. The broad bands were sometimes of perforated design and chased. The stocks were of one or other of two designs, 1) narrow, slightly sloped, of the same width throughout, or 2) strongly curved and very narrow at the grip, expanding to some breadth at the butt. When not in use, matchlocks were kept and carried about in covers made of scarlet or green broad-cloth.

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Pārah. Rustam ʿAlī, Bijnorī, in his "History of the Rohelas" (in Urdu), fol. 22a, in speaking of the fight between Donde Khān and Qutb-ud-dīn Khān, grandson of ʿAzmatullah Khān, near Kīratpur in Rohilkhand, says; bandūq ke pārah charte the. Although this meaning is not in the dictionaries, I take pārah to be here the hammer of the matchlock. Platts 258, and Steingass 230, 246, among other meanings give those of "bolt of a lock or door" and "iron mace", either of which could be easily enough extended into “hammer of a gun”.

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*The match.* The name of this was in Persian either *jāmagī* (Steingass, 351), or *falīṭah* (id. 938), in Hindī *ṭoṛā* (Shak. 702). According to Ashob, fol. 261*b*, to have the match ready and lighted was *falīṭah shahsuwār namūdan*.

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*Powder horn et cetera.* These accoutrements were called collectively *kamr* (Egerton 83, N°. 143, 133, N°. 683). The set consisted of a powder flask, bullet pouches, priming horn (*singṛā*), match-cord, flint and steel, the whole attached to a belt. This belt was often of velvet embroidered in gold. Ashob, fol. 226*b*, gives *shākh* as the word for powder horn. Steingass, 720, does not include this specific signification in the numerous meanings he gives; but Platts, “Hindustani Dictionary”, 716, has *shākh-dahana*, a small powder flask for priming. Fitzclarence, 69, speaking in 1817 of some irregular horse in the Company’s service, half of whom were armed with matchlocks, says “the receptacles which contained their powder and ball are unwieldy, and as they never make use of cartridges for their pieces, they are a long time in loading. Some of them have at least twenty yards of match about their person, similar in appearance to a large ball of pack-thread”. Modern words, adopted from Europeans, were *tozdān* (pouch) and *kārtūs* (cartridge). They are used by Khair-ud-dīn, *‘Ibratnāmah*, i, 422, when recounting René Madec’s defeat in 1191 H. (1777) by Mullā Raḥm Dād Khān. The book itself was written after 1203 H. (1788).

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*Blank Cartridge.* I find the expression *khālī-golī* used for blank cartridge by Rustam ‘Alī, Bijnorī, “History of the Rohelas” (in Urdū), fol. 17*a*: *Bataur jang-i-zargarī khālī golī se apus meṇ chalen*; “As in a goldsmith’s quarrel (a collusive dispute), they fired blank cartridge at each other”.

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*Cailletoque.* This strange word is used by Anquetil Duperron, *Zend-Avesta*, I, xliv, when speaking of Sirāj-ud-Daulah’s escort at Murshidābād (1757), and this word he defines in his index “fusil à mèche, très long, que l’on tire ordinairement en le posant sur un pié fait en espèce de fourche”. The etymology of the word baffled me for a long time, it being impossible, from his spelling, to reconstitute its original form. It is not French, as the variations in spelling sufficiently show. For instance, De la Flotte, i, 258, referring to the Coromandel coast, (where Anquetil also may have picked up the word), speaks of a very long and heavy matchlock, which he calls a *kaitoke* (evidently another phonetic rendering of “cailletoque”). Gentil also, 59, in describing the entry of Ṣalābat Jang’s troops into Aurangābād on the 11th June 1753, mentions “fusils à mèche, qu’on appelle *kaitok*, couverts de drap rouge”. René Madec (c. 1774) spells it *kayetoc* (E. Barbé, “Le Nabab René Madec”, 54). For a time I thought it might be due to the use of *qandūq*, gun-stock, as a name for the whole weapon, though I have never found in native writers any such use of that word. Or it might be a vulgar error for *bandūq*, the ordinary word for a gun. Mr. H. Beveridge suggested to me *milteq*, a gun, as a probable derivation of the word (R. B. Shaw “Sketch of the Turki Language” J. A. S. B., 1878, p. 184). P. de Courteille, Dict. 506, fancies that this word *milteq* is itself a corruption of *bandūq*. In the absence of anything more satisfactory, an explanation of *cailletoque* might be found in *qūltūq*, the armpit, (Shaw, 157, P. de Courteille 435), on the ground that a musket is often carried under the arm!

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But long after I had given up the search, I came across a word for a gun or matchlock, which I am convinced must be the original of that used by the European writers quoted above. I found this word *qaidūq* in my copy of the *Aḥmad-nāmah* of ʿAbd-ul-laṭīf, a rhyming chronicle of Aḥmad Shah’s reign written at Lakhnau in 1184 H. (1770). The two passages are on ff. 15*a* and 15*b*, the first in the rubric and the second in the text; and they read as follows:

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Rubric.

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Dāstān dar bayān kih roze suwārī-i-Wazīr dar rāh mī-raft, o yake az muʿānd dar kamīngāh nishistah, qaiduq, قيدق, bar ū rāndah, az īn maʿnī Wazīr khiyāl-i-fāsid badil az Shāh rasāndah, o derah-i-khūd az Dihlī berūn burdah, binyān-i-fasād rā taʿmīr dād.

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Text.

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Miyān-i-rāh kase qābū giriftah,
Zadah qaiduq [قيدق] barūe ū nihuftah,
Ba qasd-ash garchah ū dāʿiah zad,
Wa-le Ezad khiyāl-ash sākhtah radd,
Giriftand-ash kasān az zormandī,
Kashān burdand ūrā ham chū bandī.

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I cannot find the word in any of the dictionaries, of which I have consulted a good many.

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Jazāil or Jazāir. This was the wall-piece or swivel gun, and it is doubtful whether it should come here, under fire arms carried by the combatant, or under artillery. In some respects it partook of the character of both. Steingass, 362, defines jazāil as a large musket, wall-piece, swivel, a rifle used with a prong or rest. Egerton, 124, note to Nº. 585 refers to jazāils in the Codrington collection which are 7 feet and 8 feet long; this would appear to be the usual length. Ashob, fol. 182b, describing the entrenchments of Muḥammad Shāh outside Karnāl (1151 H., Feb. 1739), twice speaks of something he calls a pushtah, which was put up (andakhtah) by the jazāil-men. This is not the tripod, which is separately mentioned; probably it was a field shelter or slight entrenchment.

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In connection with this weapon we come to gingall, a word used by European writers. Shakespear, 796, says it is H. a swivel &ca, either a corruption of jazāil, or from janjāl, trouble, difficulty; and Steingass, 373, has a word janjāl, crowd, multitude. Yule and Burnell, 285, say that janjāl is “of uncertain origin”. Their examples are Elphinstone (1818) and Shipp (1803—15). Fitzclarence (1818) also uses the word. Janjāl is used in a Hindī poem composed in Bundelkhand in the first half of the 18th century (Journal A. S. B., vol. XLVII, 1878, p. 369). I think that jazāil must be the origin of jinjal (gingall). Substitute, as an uneducated Indian would do, a “j” for the “z”, and you have “jajāil”; then insert a nasal, far from an infrequent occurrence, and at once you have “janjāil”, or quickly pronounced, “janjāl”. Q. E. D. But whether gingall is derived from jazāil or not, these can be little doubt that both words are used in respect of one and the same kind of weapon, as witness Sir Hope Grant’s description of the Chinese gingall (Life, ii, 92). “This weapon is a species of long heavy duck-gun carrying a ball weighing about two pounds; its range is at least 1000 yards. It is placed upon a tripod, from which tolerable aim can be taken”. Lake’s remarks, Sieges, 70, note, show that a ginjal (as he spells it) was in his opinion the same thing as the jazāir or jazāil. “Long matchlocks, of various calibres, used as wall-pieces by the natives of India, which are commonly fixed like swivels, and carry iron balls not exceeding a pound in weight. In the field, they are sometimes carried on the backs of camels”. Fitzclarence, 245, says the ball of the Indian jazāil weighed two or more ounces. Jinjalls, or heavy matchlocks were, as writes captain Thomas Williamson, “Oriental Field Sports”, 45, commonly appropriated to the defence of forts. They carried a ball from one to three ounces in weight; and having very substantial barrels, were too heavy to use without a rest. Many had an iron prong of about a foot in length, fixed on a pivot not far from the nozzle: and this placed on a wall, a bush, or the ground, served as a support. In the defence of mud forts, especially in Bundelkhand, the besieged exhibited extraordinary dexterity, rarely failing to hit their object either in the head or near the heart, even at great distances. All fire arms used by Indians having small cylindrical chambers, and being mostly of a small bore, a wonderful impetus was imparted to the ball. The *juzzail* used by the Afghans in 1842 is described by Colonel Thomas Seaton, "From Cadet to Colonel"; i, 207.

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*Ghor-dāhan* was a kind of *jazā’il*, of which one thousand were made at Lāhor for Mu‘īn-ul-mulk between 1161 and 1167 H. (1748—1754), see the *Tahmās nāmah* of Miskīn, composed in 1196 H., fol. 36*a*. The allusion in the name seems to be to the everted or widened mouth of the barrel.

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*Qidr*. The *Mirāt-i-Ahmadī*, fol. 199*a*, in describing the battle outside Ahmadābād in 1143 H. (1730), between Abhai Singh, Rāhtor, and Sarbuland Khān, speaks of the horsemen with *qidr*, قدر, and matchlocks advancing to give battle. I cannot find what weapon this was. The nearest word I have found is قدر, *qidr*, a cauldron, pot, kettle, Steingass, 957; but this does not suggest an explanation. According to Erskine "History", ii, 294 (note), Osmanli troops lay great store by a kettle, which they carry into the field as other troops do their colours. But at Ahmadābād neither side were Osmanlis.

III. Pistols

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This weapon was the *tamanchah* or *tamānchah* (Steingass, 819, a sharp blow, a pistol). It does not appear in the list in the *Āīn*, an omission not to be wondered at when we remember that the *Āīn* was composed in 1596—7, while the pistol does not seem to have been known even in Europe much before 1544 (H. Wilkinson, Engines of War, 58). The pistol was in use in India, to some extent at any rate, early in the 18th century. For instance, it was with a shot from a pistol that in October 1720 a young Sayyad, related to Husain ‘Alī Khān, killed that nobleman’s assassin (Mhd Qāsim, Lāhorī, *Ibratnāmah*).

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Dowson (Ell., vii, 573) must here have read *nīmchah* and translates a "short sword", but all the copies of the text that I have seen read *tamanchah*, i. e. a pistol. Probably the pistol was confined to the higher ranks of the nobles. Its rarity is shown by these being so few examples in the Indian Museum. Egerton's "Handbook" has only three entries, and one of these refers to a pair of English pattern, which must be quite modern. But Ashob, fol. 61a, writing in 1196 H. about the shoe-sellers' riot at the great mosque in Dihlī in the year 1141 H. (11th March 1729), speaks of the soldiers taking part in it as having European *pistōl* and *tabānchah*.

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*Sherbachah*. This musketoon or blunderbuss (literally "tiger-cub") seems to have been of a still later introduction than the pistol. Egerton catalogues three examples only N°. 410 (p. 110), Nos 761—2 (p. 144). One is twenty inches long. Probably the weapon came into India with Nādir Shāh's army (1738) or that of Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī, (1748—1761). In the last quarter of the 18th century there was a regiment of Persian horse in the Lakhnau service known as the *Sher-bachah*. Possibly they took their name from this weapon, with which they may have been armed. Or the name may have been due to their supposed ferocity and thirst for their enemies' blood. Dowson in *Elliot*, viii, 398, note 2, quoting from the *Akhbār-ul-Muḥabbat*, speaks of ten thousand dismounted men in Aḥmad Shāh, Abdālī's army in 1760 "having *sher-bachas* (pistols) of Kābul".

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