United States or Myanmar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Each of the gunboats carried one 11-inch smooth-bore gun, and one 30-pounder rifle; but neither of these could be used to fire at an enemy directly ahead, and, in the operations awaiting the fleet, it is within bounds to say that not more than one gun in four could be brought to bear at any given moment.
Their mere presence in the immense forest, unexplained, was a cause of uneasiness in the then disturbed state of the country, and my intention was to show myself suddenly to them, and note its effect, which, if it betokened anything hostile to the Expedition, could without difficulty be settled at once, with the aid of my double-barrelled smooth-bore.
A momentary confusion, as the thirty-eight nine-inch smooth-bore guns on the main-deck, the four hundred-pound rifles on the spar-deck, and the eleven-inch pivot on the forecastle were cleared of their tackle, and got ready for training. The guns' crews then stood erect and silent in their places beside the guns, on the side of the ship turned toward the enemy.
They bathed and breakfasted at leisure; and then, as there was no wind, and Earle did not wish to impose upon his crew the labour of sweeping the raft up-stream against the current if it could be avoided, the two white men took the canoe, a repeating rifle and a smooth-bore, and went ashore, effecting a landing at the spot where the jaguar had been shot on the previous night, and which they now saw had been formed into a tiny bit of beach through the breaking down of the bank by the animals which evidently came to that particular spot to drink.
While one party loaded the canoe with our goods, others got ready a long rape to fasten around the animals' necks, wherewith to haul them through the river to the other bank. After seeing the work properly commenced, I sat down on a condemned canoe to amuse myself with the hippopotami by peppering their thick skulls with my No. 12 smooth-bore.
Even to the end the "regular" chiefs of artillery insisted that the Napoleon gun, a light smooth-bore twelve-pounder cannon, was our best field-piece, and at a time when a great campaign had reduced our forces so that a reduction of artillery was advisable, I received an order to send to the rear my three-inch rifled ordnance guns and retain my Napoleons.
Three long smooth-bore iron culverins lay on the ground between this magazine and the pier, but they had not been fired, apparently, in a century, and were so eaten and pitted by rust that I could not find on them any trace of inscription or date.
Scattered about here and there on the flat roof of the bastion were five short bronze mortars of various calibers and two muzzle-loading smooth-bore cannon, mounted, like field-pieces, on clumsy wooden carriages with long "trails" and big, heavy wheels.
The great door banged sharply, and out of the blackness sounded a rush of moccasined feet, padding the earth as they ran. From the edge of the timber from the direction of the shadowy shapes came a long, thin spurt of flame, and the silence was broken by the roar of a smooth-bore rifle.
Forty years ago our troops were armed with a smooth-bore musket, and a small force known as the "Rifle Brigade" was the exception to this rule.
Word Of The Day