The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s2.21

c11.s2.21

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.