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Updated: June 17, 2025
I was riding at speed to deliver my orders, when, from behind a large tree, a Pindaree had the impudence to discharge his matchlock in my very teeth; but the ball missed me.
The statesman had been foremost to urge the claim of William the Silent's son upon the stadholderate of Holland and Zeeland, and had been, as it were, the youth's political guardian. He had himself borne arms more than once before, having shouldered his matchlock under Batenburg, and marched on that officer's spirited but disastrous expedition for the relief of Haarlem.
Then a soldier, leaning down, applied fire to the fusee. Eventually there was a loud report, which gave my head a severe shock. The overloaded matchlock flew clean out of the Pombo's hand, much to everybody's surprise. I forced myself to laugh. The tantalizing failure of every attempt they made to hurt me drove the crowd to the highest pitch of fury. "Ta kossaton, ta kossaton!"
There was no moon abroad, but a sufficiency of light was afforded us by the extraordinary brilliancy of the stars, which appear much bigger, as well as thicker in the sky, in these latitudes than in England. At a short distance from the door of the shed I could perceive the sentinel, seated with his back towards us, his hands resting on his matchlock. "This way," whispered Rupert in my ear.
Their arms are matchlock guns, with which they are expert marksmen, bamboo lances or spears with long iron heads, and a side-weapon called jono, which resembles and is worn as a sword rather than a kris. The cartridge-boxes are provided with a number of little wooden cases, each containing a charge for the piece.
Most of the spears have wooden shafts, but others are all metal, and mostly iron. Some are of fine and elegant workmanship, inlaid with brass, and of the value of a good maharee, or thirty dollars. They have staves also, which they use as walking-sticks, or weapons of war, as it may be . These are their weapons of warfare. The matchlock they despise.
"I came to have a little talk," said Matthew easily, taking in his man with a quick glance. "Well, then, you had best descend those stairs again," replied the soldier; "I'm in no mood for talking." "Now, that's curious," said Matthew genially, leaning against the wall, "because I am. I never felt more disposed to conversation in my life." The soldier scowled and fingered his matchlock.
My men kept falling off one by one; and when I arrived at the edge of the ditch, which appeared wide and deep, and was assisting the men with the bridge, I received a matchlock ball, which entered over the right eye, and passed out over the left. This tumbled me, my forehead literally hanging over my nose, and the wound bleeding profusely.
"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long musket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like this one?" Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no, I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600." "That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the Mayflower." "Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked.
Mercenaries from Mocha, Hazramaut, and Bir Hamid near Aden: they are armed with matchlock, sword, and dagger; and each receives from the governor a monthly stipend of two dollars and a half. The system of caste, which prevails in El Yemen, though not in the northern parts of Arabia, is general throughout the Somali country. The principal families of outcasts are the following.
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