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The Inuits of our party, especially Ishnark and Joe, were very much frightened, and said the people we were about to meet were as warlike as the Netchilliks, and always wanted to fight when they met strangers. They were somewhat reassured when their attention was called to the immense advantage we had over them with our breech-loaders and magazine guns against their bows and spears.
It has been said that war cannot be made without running risks, nor can operations be carried out in the face of an enemy armed with breech-loaders without loss. No tactics can altogether shield men from bullets.
The Prussian existed no longer, they embraced one another with joy and restrained themselves from running to the defiles of the Argonne where there are defiles no longer; never mind, that is according to tradition. I have a friend in Rouen who proposed to a club the manufacture of lances to fight against the breech-loaders!
The latter, now harassed almost beyond endurance by the combined fire of the fort and the ships, brought up, about midday, a company of sharpshooters armed with the latest breech-loaders, which they had somehow managed to secure; and by means of well-directed volleys, contrived to keep the men of the fort from their guns to such an extent that the fire from that building dwindled almost to nothing, so that one more of the rebel guns was released to be trained on the anchored cruisers, when the effect of the increased cannonade soon became apparent in that direction also.
"No, he met them in line, and his men had no breech-loaders in those days; not even percussion caps; only the old brown bess with a flint and steel lock, and a good bayonet on the end of her." "But perhaps the odds were not so great." "Quite, by all accounts. It is true that the Indians fought with swords and shields, and, after firing their matchlocks, charged home with those weapons.
It was the same thing with the Zulus, you know, they came right down on our men at Isandula, and the fire of the breech-loaders did not stop them in the slightest." "No more it would stop us, young un, if we got orders to charge. It did not at Balaclava." "No, that is true enough," Edgar agreed; "but then we have got discipline.
He had also purchased an old-fashioned double-barrelled fowling-piece, muzzle-loading and with percussion locks. "For you see, Nigel," the captain had said, "it's all very well to use breech-loaders when you've got towns and railways and suchlike to supply you wi' cartridges, but when you've got to cruise in out-o'-the-way waters, there's nothin' like the old style.
"You see, boys, if I'd a fired into that cow, the devils would a had me before I could a got a patch on my ball didn't have no breech-loaders in them days, and it took as much judgment to know how to load a rifle properly as it did to shoot it. "Them Ingins knowed all that they knowed I hadn't fired, so they kept a respectable distance.
It was a curious sight to see the great Zulu sitting there upon the floor, his battleaxe resting against the wall behind him, whilst his long aristocratic-looking hands were busily employed, delicately and with the utmost care, cleaning the mechanism of the breech-loaders. He had a name for each gun.
You said you thought that they would be back again in a month, and surely there can be no very great danger in a fight with these savages." "The smallest amount in the world, Emma. It is not like Baker's force, which was composed of these cowardly Egyptians; and it is ridiculous to suppose that these wild tribesmen, brave as they may be, can stand against British troops armed with breech-loaders.
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