APPENDIX

NOTE A.-SIKH INTRENCHMENTS.

In the Sikh intrenchments generally, it appeared as if the position of the guns had been selected by some directing head, the batteries being planted with great judgment, and carefully revetted with timber, whilst the connecting and interior trenches had been left to the discretion and convenience of each battalion and group of fighting men, to cover themselves as they thought best. Thus the trenches were sometimes found to be line within line, eight or ten deep, as if a regiment in column had fallen to digging as it stood. Even in the extemporaneous position which Sher Singh took up at Sadoollapoor on the Chenab, (3d December 1848,) when he turned out of his camp, opposite Ramnuggur, to meet Sir Joseph Thackwell advancing on his flank, such excavations had been commenced during the few hours that the Sikhs were posted there. So also Capt. Cunningham describes their conduct when surprised on the march at Aliwal: "With that activity necessary to their system, and characteristic of the spirit of the common soldiers, they immediately began to throw up banks of earth before their guns, where not otherwise protected-such as would afford some cover to themselves, and offer some impediment to their assailants." * "We are again about to war on moles," said Marlborough's men, advancing on the French intrenchments at Malplaquet;† and the same expression was frequently heard in the armies of the Sutlej and the Punjab.

In the following extract, the proceedings of both parties will recall to many those of the Sikhs at Ramnuggur and elsewhere :-" The French began to dig a trench hard by Charenton, which ran in length to the very end of our camp, directly over against the which (the river being between us and them, as you have heard) they built a bulwark of wood and earth, and thereon mounted great store of artillery.—The trench was of great length, and they wrought continually upon it, casting the earth towards us, thereby to save themselves from our shot: for they lay all in their trench, neither durst one of them peep out, because the meadow where they lodged was as plain as a man's hand.— -A great many in our army digged pits in the ground before their lodging; many also were made to their hand, for it was a place where men wrought for

*

History of the Sikhs, p. 317.

+ Alison's Marlborough, p. 272.

stone. To conclude-I never heard, in so short a time, such a number of cannon-shot; for we, on our side, meant to remove them thence by force of artillery, and they plied the matter diligently, and spared 10 powder."-History of Philip de Comines, book i. c. J.

NOTE B.-BURMESE STOCKADES.

"At Wattygoon the position," says Snodgrass, had been chosen with their usual judgment by the Burmese engineers, having two skies "Toteeted by a deep morass. A jungle covered the approaen on the third side; the rear alone was open ground, and the only part frem vien the works could have been advantageously assailed.”

These works were of great size. At Meiloone the principal stockade appeared to be a square of about a mile.+

The most remarkable of the Burmese intrenchments was the Stockade of Donoobew. It "extended for nearly a mile along the sicping bank of the Irawaddy, its breadth varying from 500 to 300 arus. The stockading was composed of solid teak beams from 150 res high, driven firmly into the earth, and placed as close as possible o each other. Behind this wooden wail the old brick amparts of he place rose to a considerable height, strengthening the front lefences v means of cross beams, and affording a firm and sievated footing to he defendants. Upwards of 150 guns and swiveis vere mounted on the works, and the garrison was protected from the shells of the besiegers by numerous well-contrived traverses and excavations. considerable magnitude surrounded the defences, the passage of vinen was rendered still more difficult by spikes, nails, holes, and other comtrivances. Beyond the ditch several rows of song railings were ext Interposed, and in front of all an abattis. 90 is broad, and other vise of a most formidable description, extended round a pace, except the river side, where the deep and wide Icavally presented a suficient. bocrrier, its breadth not exceeding 700 yards ; and 107 1 boat conia mass without being exposed to heavy fire from the Huckate.”

In the attack of a position, also, the Barnese extivated cover, vinen. In His Akshying4: "The trenches were found to succession of ones

gir, pust. forward to where the second being immediately taker ut by fresh. Troops from the paed, part # un progressively-the number of trenches ego kad grade moonding to the force of the besiegers, to the plans of

ANUS KONSANI, WA Boy Pha dusa of the ground." y

During Bundoola's grand attack on the British position at Rangoon, in December 1824, his men by help of such excavations maintained themselves for several days at half musket-range from our lines, whilst exposed to every species of fire. They were only to be dislodged by means of the bayonet.*

NOTE C.-SHELLS FIRED WITHOUT MORTARS.

I remember hearing, some years ago, in India, that Lena Singh Majeetia, a Sikh chief, well known for his attachment to the curiosities of European science,† and for his cautious abstinence from committing himself against the British Government in the late Punjab troubles, had exhibited to some officers at Umballa an art, which he professed to have, of firing shells without ordnance of any kind. Unfortunately, I have no notes of the particulars; but, as the circumstance was related, the Sirdar, with one native assistant, concealed himself within a canvass screen, having no apparatus but a shell, a tent peg, and an ordinary digging-tool; and in due time the shell was discharged, ranging to a considerable distance. Some light is thrown on the subject by a passage which Daniel, in his Histoire de la Milice Française, (vol. i. p. 581,) extracts from Blondel's Art de jetter les Bombes. This describes how the Poles, in besieging Thorn in Prussia, when held by the Swedes in 1659, shot into the town vast pieces of rock and quarters of mill-stones without using mortars, by digging in the ground, near the counterscarp, holes adapted to the form of the stones, furnished with chambers at the bottom, and having their axes inclined at a suitable angle.

In 1771, a Mr Healy at Gibraltar cut a mortar in the rock, about 200 yards above the level of the sea, and 400 yards from the line wall. It was 3 feet in diameter, and 4 feet deep, with a parabolical chamber at the bottom, and the axis was directed at an elevation of 45°. Being loaded with 27 lb. of powder, covered with a tompion, and over this charge some 1500 lb. weight of stones, it was fired by a hollow reed and copper tube passing through the stones and tompion to the centre of the chamber. About a fourth part of the stones went into the sea about 100 yards beyond the wall. The mortar was fired three times without suffering the least damage.§

NOTE D.-SIR JOHN JONES.

Sir John T. Jones was born March 25th, 1783, and obtained his commission in the Royal Engineers in 1798. In 1805 he accompanied Sir James Craig's expedition on the rash landing at Naples, and subsequent retirement to Messina. Next year he was with Sir John Stuart's army

*MS. Note by Major Seton, Madras Artillery.

Lena Singh was the constructor of the beautiful field-battery taken from his brother, Runjoor Singh, at Aliwal, and a part of which is now, it is believed, at Windsor Castle.

They turned the Earth into a piece of ordnance. So have I seen, beside the hot springs of Jumnotri, the Himalyan mountaineer excavate a tiny hollow in the hill-side, fill it with the fragrant weed, and use all Earth for his Tobacco-pipe.

§ Grose's Military Antiquities, App., No. VII.

It has since

He

house of military wisdom, was first published in 1813. gone through several editions, and has been translated into French. Sir John Jones was the first author who published a history of the war in Spain, (1814,) since superseded by Napier's more elaborate work. also printed (privately) an account of the Lines at Lisbon, which has been since published.-(Mainly from a biographical notice in the United Service Magazine for 1843.)

NOTE E.-FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO.

Francesco, the son of Giorgio, the son of Martino of Siena, was born in a humble rank of life about 1423. The earliest notice of his professional labours is in 1447, when he was employed as one of the architects of the cathedral at Orvieto in the Roman States-an edifice the restoration of which engaged the genius of a still more celebrated engineer and architect, Michael San Michele, in the next century. He was afterwards employed by Duke Frederic of Urbino, and continued in the same service till that prince's death. In 1478 he was attached to the allied army which the duke commanded, and in his autograph MSS. he speaks of having one hundred and thirty "edifices on hand at once under his orders. Among these, doubtless, were many strongholds in the duchy.* Plans of four, at least, which he executed have been preserved. The duke not only kept this most able engineer of his time in constant employment, but, according to Francesco's testimony, by his own experience and judicious suggestions, greatly facilitated the tasks which he imposed. He was also accredited, on various occasions, as the duke's envoy to the government of his native city; and his book on architecture is dedicated to Duke Frederic, at whose request, probably, it was composed.

His military reputation was widely spread in his lifetime, and he had commissions from various princes, especially the sovereigns of Milan and Naples. He is stated also to have been employed as an engineer by Pope Pius II. The time of his death is not certainly known, though it is supposed to have occurred about 1506. He outlived most of his fortresses, which were dismantled by Duke Guidobaldo, the son of Frederic, when he abandoned his territory on the invasion of Cæsar Borgia in 1502.

Vasari says that he was particularly eminent in the construction of engines of war, and zealous in the study of military antiquities, as well as in that of the structure of ancient amphitheatres and similar edifices. He did more to facilitate the progress of architecture, says the same writer, and performed more essential services for that branch of art, than any other master had done from the time of Brunelleschi.

Francesco was a sculptor and a painter, as well as an architect and engineer. His paintings are excessively rare; but a few remain at Siena, his native place. As a sculptor, he produced two angels in

"The fortresses of Urbino at that period have been estimated at nearly three hundred, a number which must seem incredible, but for the entire change which the arts of war and defence were then undergoing, consequent on a general introduction of artillery."-Dennistoun's Dukes of Urbino, ii. 203.