Volume I Part 94 (1/2)
The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted by the sovereign as a high honour and reward.
The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. For Wright defines _Naker_ as ”a cornet or horn of bra.s.s.” And Chaucer's use seems to countenance this:--
”Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes, That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes.”
--_The Knight's Tale_.
On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the meaning of _kettle-drum_, with the slight exception of a local application at Siena to a metal circle or triangle struck with a rod. The fact seems to be that there is a double origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only have _Nakkarah_, but _Nakir_ and _Nakur_, ”cornu, tuba.” The orchestra of Bibars Bundukdari, we are told, consisted of 40 pairs of kettle-drums, 4 drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (_Nakir_). (_Sir B. Frere; Della Valle_, II. 21; _Tod's Rajasthan_, I. 328; _Joinville_, p. 83; _N. et E._ XIV. 129, and following note; Blochmann's _Ain-i-Akbari_, pp. 50-51; _Ducange_, by Haenschel, s.v.; _Makrizi_, I. 173.)
[Dozy (_Supp. aux Dict. Arabes_) has [Arabic] [_naqqare_] ”pet.i.t tambour ou timbale, ba.s.sin de cuivre ou de terre recouvert d'une peau tendue,” and ”grosses timbales en cuivre portees sur un chameau ou un mulet.”--Devic (_Dict. etym._) writes: ”Bas Latin, _nacara_; bas grec, [Greek: anachara].
Ce n'est point comme on l'a dit, l'Arabe [Arabic] _naqr_ ou [Arabic]
_naqor_, qui signifient _trompette_, _clairon_, mais le persan [Arabic] en arabe, [Arabic] _naqara_, _timbale_.” It is to be found also in Abyssinia and south of Gondokoro; it is mentioned in the _Sedjarat Malayu_.
In French, it gives _nacaire_ and _gnacare_ from the Italian _gnacare_.
”Quatre jouent de la guitare, quatre des castagnettes, quatre des gnacares.” (MOLIeRE, _Pastorale Comique_.)--H. C.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Nakkaras. (From an Indian original.)]
NOTE 4.--This description of a fight will recur again and again till we are very tired of it. It is difficult to say whether the style is borrowed from the historians of the East or the romancers of the West. Compare the two following parallels. First from an Oriental history:--
”The Ear of Heaven was deafened with the din of the great _Kurkahs_ and Drums, and the Earth shook at the clangour of the Trumpets and Clarions.
The shafts began to fall like the rain-drops of spring, and blood flowed till the field looked like the Oxus.” (_J. A. S._ ser. IV. tom. xix. 256)
Next from an Occidental Romance:--
”Now rist grete tabour betyng, Blaweyng of pypes, and ek trumpyng, Stedes lepyng, and ek arnyng, Of sharp speres, and avalyng Of stronge knighttes, and wyghth meetyng; Launces breche and increpyng; Knighttes fallyng, stedes lesyng; Herte and hevedes thorough kervyng; Swerdes draweyng, lymes lesyng Hard a.s.saylyng, strong defendyng, Stiff withstondyng and wighth fleigheyng.
Sharp of takyng armes spoylyng; So gret bray, so gret crieyng, Ifor the folk there was dyeyng; _So muche dent, noise of sweord, The thondur blast no myghte beo hirde_, No the sunne hadde beo seye, For the dust of the poudre!
_No the weolkyn seon be myght, So was arewes and quarels flyght_.”
--_King Alisaunder, in Weber_, I. 93-94.
And again:--
”The eorthe quaked heom undur, _No scholde mon have herd the thondur_.”
--Ibid. 142.
Also in a contemporary account of the fall of Acre (1291): ”Renovatur ergo bellum terribile inter alterutros ... clamoribus interjectis hine et inde ad terrorem; _ita ut nec Deus tonans in sublime coaudiri potuisset_.”
(_De Excidio Acconis_, in _Martene et Durand_, V. 780.)
NOTE 5.--”_Car il estoit_ homme _au Grant Kaan_.” (See note 2, ch. xiv., in Prologue.)
NOTE 6.--In continuation of note 4, chap. ii., we give Gaubil's conclusion of the story of Nayan: ”The Emperor had gone ahead with a small force, when Nayan's General came forward with 100,000 men to make a reconnaissance. The Sovereign, however, put on a bold front, and though in great danger of being carried off, showed no trepidation. It was night, and an urgent summons went to call troops to the Emperor's aid. They marched at once, the hors.e.m.e.n taking the foot soldiers on the crupper behind them. Nayan all this while was taking it quietly in his camp, and his generals did not venture to attack the Emperor, suspecting an ambuscade. Liting then took ten resolute men, and on approaching the General's camp, caused a Fire-_Pao_ to be discharged; the report caused a great panic among Nayan's troops, who were very ill disciplined at the best. Meanwhile the Chinese and Tartar troops had all come up, and Nayan was attacked on all sides: by Liting at the head of the Chinese, by Yusitemur at the head of the Mongols, by Tutuha and the Emperor in person at the head of his guards and the troops of _Kincha_ (Kipchak). The presence of the Emperor rendered the army invincible, and Nayan's forces were completely defeated. That prince himself was taken, and afterwards put to death. The battle took place in the vicinity of the river Liao, and the Emperor returned in triumph to Shangtu” (207). The Chinese record given in detail by Pauthier is to the like effect, except as to the Kaan's narrow escape, of which it says nothing.
As regards the Fire-_Pao_ (the latter word seems to have been applied to military machines formerly, and now to artillery), I must refer to Fave and Reinaud's very curious and interesting treatise on the Greek fire (_du Feu Gregeois_). They do not seem to a.s.sent to the view that the arms of this description which are mentioned in the Mongol wars were cannon, but rather of the nature of rockets.
[Dr. G. Schlegel (_T'oung Pao_, No. 1, 1902), in a paper ent.i.tled, _On the Invention and Use of Fire-Arms and Gunpowder in China, prior to the Arrival of Europeans_, says that ”now, notwithstanding all what has been alleged by different European authors against the use of gunpowder and fire-arms in China, I maintain that not only the Mongols in 1293 had cannon, but that they were already acquainted with them in 1232.” Among his many examples, we quote the following from the Books of the Ming Dynasty: ”What were anciently called _P'ao_ were all machines for hurling stones. In the beginning of the Mongol Dynasty (A.D. 1260), _p'ao_ (catapults) of the Western regions were procured. In the siege [in 1233]
of the city of _Ts'ai chow_ of the _Kin_ (Tatars), fire was for the first time employed (in these _p'ao_), but the art of making them was not handed down, and they were afterwards seldom used.”--H. C.]
CHAPTER V.