The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c26.37

c26.37

This use of stones was the principal cause of our failure at the first storming of Chunār on the Ganges, Nov. 29th 1764, (Carraccioli, "Clive", i, 64). "Large stones, which the enemy rolled out of the breach and on each side of it, threw our men so often down and rolled them back again by twenties at a time . . . . . Our people were at last so fatigued that they were obliged to give it up". Here Captain Dow (the historian) had his skull fractured by a stone, for which he was obliged to be trepanned. Khair-ud-dīn, *Ibrat-nāmah*, 75, tells us that *sang-asiya* were thrown from the walls of Patnah when it was attacked in 1173 H. (1759); the dictionary, St. 701, says these are whetstones, possibly the stones of hand-mills are intended by the author. We were also repulsed twice, in 1789 and again in 1791, at Kistnagarhī (Salem District) "simply by (the garrison) rolling down stones and large masses of granite on the assailants", Lake, 207, note. Again, at Trimbak, in Khāndesh, our assault on the 24th April 1818 was chiefly repulsed by the garrison rolling down large stones on their assailants (Lake, 105); and great damage was done in the same way at Gopādrūg on the 13th May 1819 (id. 201).