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Updated: May 23, 2025
They were dressed much the same as the vagrant Sioux, and, like him, their faces were painted, and their coarse black hair dangled loosely about their shoulders. They were armed with rifles; but two of the weapons seemed to be the long, old-fashioned muzzle-loaders, while the third carried a Winchester.
All were armed either with bow and arrows or muzzle-loaders, for nearly the entire Mezop contingent had been enlisted for this march, only sufficient having been left aboard the feluccas to man them properly. I divided the forces into divisions, regiments, battalions, companies, and even to platoons and sections, appointing the full complement of officers and noncommissioned officers.
I went every day to fencing practice, likewise to cavalry sword practice; I took lessons in the use of the bayonet, and I took part every afternoon in the shooting practices conducted by the officers with the old muzzle-loaders which were the army weapons at the time. I was very delighted one day when Mr.
As Harry had sufficient steel left for four barrels more, two days were devoted to boring them out, in the hope that they would ultimately be able to finish them up. They would then have a battery of ten guns, and the necessity of having a number arose from the fact that they were muzzle-loaders, and could not be reloaded rapidly.
On the contrary, we are firm in the conviction that they are destined to supersede entirely every species of muzzle-loaders, which will thenceforward be regarded only as curious evidences of the difficulty of making an advance of a single step, which, when taken, seems so simple that it appears incredible that it was not thought of before.
The reports of so many heavy rifles, which of necessity were fired every evening at dusk in the days of muzzle-loaders, for the sake of cleaning, must have widely alarmed the country, but independently of this special cause there can be no doubt that after a few days' heavy shooting, the elephants will combine in some mysterious manner and disappear from an extensive district.
I looked at the guns they were carrying. The six men had five different patterns of weapons, and none was any good. One proudly carried an old Korean sporting gun of the oldest type of muzzle-loaders known to man. Around his arm was the long piece of thin rope which he kept smouldering as touch-powder, and hanging in front of him were the powder horn and bullet bag for loading.
The hangings of the room were silken and rose-colored, and a delicious confusion prevailed through it pell-mell; box-spurs, hunting-stirrups, cartridge cases, curb-chains, muzzle-loaders, hunting flasks, and white gauntlets, being mixed up with Paris novels, pink notes, point-lace ties, bracelets, and bouquets to be dispatched to various destinations, and velvet and silk bags for banknotes, cigars, or vesuvians, embroidered by feminine fingers and as useless as those pretty fingers themselves.
Thus in the forefront pass lean forms clad for the most part in garments fringed with buckskin. You can see where some have torn off portions of the fringes to clean their rifles. Old-fashioned long-barreled muzzle-loaders, these rifles; and powder-horns hang by the sides of the bearers.
It is probable that the introduction of breech-loading guns will be proportionally slow. A distinguished English military writer says: "With respect to the choice between muzzle-loaders and breech-loaders, I am quite satisfied that the latter will eventually carry the day.
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