percussion-lock, which is simpler, is
less exposed to the effects of dampness, and more quickly and surely
ignites the powder. Even the ordinary regulation-musket with its
bayonet was spoken of by Napoleon in his time as "the best engine of
warfare ever invented by man." Since the day of the Great Emperor, and
even during the reign of the present Napoleon, continued improvements
have been made in the character of the weapon used by the French
infantry. The weight, length, correctness of aim, durability, and
handiness of the gun have all been carefully examined and modified, to
the advantage of the soldier, until, finally, we have a weapon which
combines wonderful qualities of lightness, strength, correctness of
equipoise, ease and rapidity of loading, with perfect adaptability as
a combination of the lance, pike, and sword, when it has ceased to be
a fire-arm.

We have not here the space to enter upon a disquisition concerning
these progressive changes; but suffice it to say that nearly all the
peculiar styles of fire-arms were well known at an early period,
and that the rifling, etc., of guns and cannon, with the other
modifications now adopted, are merely the development and consummation
of old ideas. For instance, the rifled arquebuse was known and used
at the close of the fifteenth century, and, although the rifled musket
was not put in general use by the French infantry, from the fact that
its reduced length and the greater complication of movements required
in loading and discharging it deprived it of other advantages when
in the hands of troops of the line, still it was adopted in a certain
proportion in some branches of the French service.

As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, some corps of light
cavalry called _Carabins_ were armed with the short rifle-musket, and
hence the derivation of the term _carabines_ applied to the weapon.
These "carabines" were also very promptly adopted by hunters and
sportsmen everywhere. The Swiss and the Tyrolese employed them in
chasing the chamois among their mountains, and practised their skill
in the use of them at general shooting-matches, which to this very day
are celebrated as national festivals. The Austrian Government was the
first to profit by this preference on the part of certain populations
for accurate fire-arms, and at once proceeded to organize battalions
of Tyrolese _Chasseurs_, or _Huntsmen_,--to give the meaning of the
French word. These Chasseu