The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c12.s1.34

c12.s1.34

*Wooden Guns.* Under the stress of necessity these strange substitutes for ordinary cannon were used by the Sikhs on two occasions. For instance, we learn that when the Sikhs in Dec. 1710 evacuated their fort of Lohgarh in the outer hills, they blew up a cannon "which they had made out of the trunk of a tamarind tree" (Kāmwar Khān, entry of 19th Shawwāl 1122 H.). Another writer, Ghulām Muḥī-ud-dīn Khān, fol. 37b), tells us that when they were besieged in Gurdāspur in 1715, the Sikhs, though they had the light artillery that they had taken from Wazīr Khān, faujdār of Sihrind, Bāyāzīd Khān, and Shams Khān, were unprovided with heavier pieces. These they replaced by hollowed-out trunks of trees, strengthened by heavy iron bands placed close together. From these they threw balls of stone and iron. The Mahomedans estimated these make-shift cannon to be about half as effective as the usual kind. A. Demmin "Die Kriegswaffen", 108, speaks of wooden mortars used in Europe in the Middle Ages; they were formed of hollowed tree trunks bound with iron straps and furnished with a metal touchhole. And so late as 1525 the rebellious peasants who besieged their Archbishop in Strasburg were in possession of wooden cannon. They also had leather cannon, such as at a later time were used by the Swedes! Demmin, p. 929, N°. 24bis, has a figure of a wooden cannon from Cochin China, said to be manufactured there up to the present time. It appears to be a tree trunk strengthened by thirteen strong bands in its whole length.