United States or Gambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was carried across to the front, where he alighted and walked slowly across to the red table, followed by sword, spear, and matchlock men, who, as he took his place at the table, ranged themselves on either side facing us, and completing a spectacle that, seen there in the bright light, strongly suggested the opening of some grand pantomime.
I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One-third of it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece, with a ragged rust-hole where the nipples should have been, one-third a wire-bound matchlock with a worm-eaten stock, and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun without a flint.
Each day the enemy's guns shattered the outer barricade, but this was as regularly repaired at night, in spite of the heavy artillery and matchlock fire which they kept up towards the spot. On the fourth day the enemy pulled down a house, standing just in the rear of their battery, and Charlie found that behind it they had erected another.
One would think the merchants, for their own sakes, would keep together; but no, it's all maktoub with them; "If they are to be robbed and murdered they must be robbed and murdered, and the Bashaw and all his troops can't prevent it." This they reiterated to me whilst the commandant bullied them; and yet these same men had each of them a matchlock and pistols besides.
Many of the soldiers were his domestic slaves; but the greater part were Bedouins from different parts of Arabia; those from Yemen, the mountains of Asyr, and Nedjed, being the most numerous. Their pay was from eight to twelve dollars per month; The arms of the infantry were a matchlock and crooked knife; the horsemen had a lance.
He collapsed, while I administered another blow in the right temple of another man who held his matchlock between his legs, and was on the point of striking his flint and steel in order to set the tinder on fire. He, too, staggered and fell clumsily. "Chakzal, chakzal! Chakzal wortzié!" "Chakzal!" "Middù, middù!" I purchased from these men about thirty pounds of tsamba and eight pounds of butter.
Protected in this manner, Captain Smith fought bravely, as he always does, and had succeeded in killing two of the Indians with his matchlock, when suddenly he sank knee deep into a mire. It seems that he had been retreating toward the canoe, hoping to get on board her where would be some chance for shelter, and was so engaged with the savages in front of him as to give little heed to his steps.
Five men, each with a matchlock in his hand, stood ready to fire upon those who would at the same time desert and steal from us, and Captain Smith gave the order for Captain Kendall and Master Wingfield to come on shore without delay.
"Now, you take a Scot who collects guns, and you have something!" "That's only part of it," Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarter of the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying around had been scrapped, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. Hester Prynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock.
"Oh, Priscilla." Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; she knows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne." "Hester coming up," Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket out of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing it over to Rand.
Word Of The Day