The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.31

c26.31

*Modes of repelling assault, Burning oil, Powder Bags &c.* In a quotation already given on p. 273, from Fitzclarence, reference has been made to the throwing down from the walls of bags of gunpowder and burning thatch. I have also referred on p. 131 to the *ḥuqgah-i-ātash* used for a similar purpose. Other missiles are named by Horn, 123, quoting Von Noer i, 254 (“French trans.”, i, 161), who says that at the siege of Chitor the Rājputs brought sacks of cotton cloth and fascines steeped in oil, which they endeavoured to set fire to while the breach was being stormed. As to the throwing of skins full of gunpowder with a match attached, we read of this being done by the defenders of a fort in the Dakhin in the fourth year of Shāhjahān (1631 A.D.). Horn, 132, quotes the passage from the *Bādshāh-nāmah*, i, 376, sixth line from end, *az darūn-i-ḥiṣār bān o tufang o ḥuqgah o sang o mashk-hāe bārūt rā ātash zadah mī andakhtand*, “From inside the fort they threw rockets and bullets and grenades and stones and lighted powder-skins”. A somewhat later instance of the use of the *ḥuqgah* or hand-grenade and the *hānḍī* or firepot, was at the siege of the Ghasahrī fort (‘Alīgārh district) by Suraj Mal, Jāt, in the year 1753. In the *Sujān Charitr*, Canto v, stanza 24, we have: