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The infantry followed, sturdily breasting the long ascent; a second intrenched position, barring the La Hoya pass, was abandoned on their approach; the strong castle of Perote, with an armament of 60 guns and mortars, opened its gates without firing a shot, and on May 15 the great city of Puebla, surrounded by glens of astonishing fertility, and only eighty miles from Mexico, was occupied without resistance.
Bonaparte then convoked upon the spot a council of his generals of artillery and of the engineers, and, within an hour's time, some guns and mortars of still heavier metal and greater calibre were carried up to replace the others; but, fortunately for the generals, before a trial could be made of them the tide changed, and your cruisers sailed.
Puffs of smoke dotted the valley beneath the mount, and, as the answering reports reverberated across space, nature's mortars in the inclosure of mountains sent forth threatening wreaths of white in sympathy with the eight-inch howitzers and sixteen-pounders turned upon the crest of the royal hill.
Slings, bases, sakers, port-pieces, and fowlers belonged to this class. III. Perriers, from 6 to 8 caliber, firing stone-balls, shells, fire-balls, etc. IV. Mortars, of 1.5 caliber, including petards and murderers. The "great ordnance," or cannon, were muzzle-loading.
In addition to this it contained a mine shaft running towards the enemy's lines, some 40 yards away, and at this the Boche constantly threw his "Sausages," small trench mortars made of lengths of stove piping stopped at the ends. It was also suspected that he was counter-mining.
During this day guns and mortars were brought into the city from our batteries, and placed so as to shell the palace and the great building called the Selimgur.
This allowance was given in meal when it could be obtained; when it could not, they received corn, which they pounded in mortars after they returned from their labor in the field. The slaves on our plantation were provided with very little meat In addition to the peck of corn or meal, they were allowed a little salt and a few herrings.
The Mongols employed their most formidable engines, catapults hurling immense stones, and mortars ejecting explosives and combustibles, but twelve months elapsed before the walls were shattered and the courage and provisions of the defenders exhausted. Then Kaifong surrendered at discretion, and Subutai wished to massacre the whole of the population.
They either pick up detached pieces showing visible gold, or they sink pits and nibble at the walls of the reefs. But whereas the Nile-peoples pounded the stone in mortars and washed the dust on sloping boards, here the matrix must be laboriously levigated.
As a preliminary a house was built wholly of ice, and all its furniture, tables, seats, ornaments, and even the nuptial bedstead, were made of the same frigid material. In front of the house were placed four cannons and two mortars of ice, so solid in construction that they were fired several times without bursting.
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