e fired with match, and they make excellent gun-powder. They
use also lances, swords, and targets, and bows and arrows. Their swords
are made crooked like faulchions, and very sharp; but, for want of skill
in tempering, will break rather than bend; wherefore our sword-blades,
which will bend and become straight again, are often sold at high
prices. I have seen horsemen in this country, thus accoutered, carrying
as it were a whole armory at once; a good sword by their sides, under
which a sheaf of arrows; on their back a gun fastened with belts, a
buckler on their shoulders; a bow in a case hanging on their left side,
and a good lance in their hand, two yards and a half long, with an
excellent steel head. Yet, for all these weapons, dare he not resist a
man of true courage, armed only with the worst of all these. The armies
in these eastern wars often consist of incredible multitudes, and they
talk of some which have exceeded that we read of in the Bible, which
Zerah, king of Ethiopia, brought against Asia. Their martial music
consists of kettle-drums and long wind-instruments. In their battles,
both sides usually begin with most furious onsets; but, in a short time,
for want of good discipline, they fall into disorder, and one side is
routed with much slaughter.

[Footnote 237: Vertoman says the Portuguese who deserted at the first
discovery of India, and entered into the service of the native princes,
taught them this art.--_Purch_.

I have somewhere read, many years ago, but cannot recollect the
authority, "That, when Alexander besieged a certain city in India, the
Brachmans, by the power of magic, raised a cloud of smoke around the
walls, whence broke frequent flashes of lightning, with thunder, and the
thunderbolts slew many of his soldiers." This would infer the very
ancient use of fire-arms of some kind in India.--E.]

The Mahometans have fair places of worship, which they call _mesquits_,
well built of stone. That side which looks to the westwards is a
close-built wall, while that towards the east is erected on pillars, the
length being from north to south. At the corners of their great mosques,
in the cities, there are high turrets or pinnacles, called _minarets_,
to the tops of which their molahs or priests resort at certain times of
day, proclaiming their prophet in Arabic, in these words,--_Alla illa
Alla, Mahomet resul Alla_; that is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet
is the ambassador of God. This is u