The Travels Of Marco Polo - Volume 2 Of 2 By Marco Polo And Rustichello Of Pisa











































 -  The King was
trying to run a dam across a branch of the river, and had protected the
head of - Page 319
The Travels Of Marco Polo - Volume 2 Of 2 By Marco Polo And Rustichello Of Pisa - Page 319 of 1350 - First - Home

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The King Was Trying To Run A Dam Across A Branch Of The River, And Had Protected The Head Of His Work By "Cat-Castles" Or Towers Of Timber, Occupied By Archers, And These Again Supported By Trebuchets, Etc., In Battery.

"And," says Jean Pierre Sarrasin, the King's Chamberlain, "when the Saracens saw what was going on, they planted a great number of engines against ours, and to destroy our towers and our causeway they shot such vast quantities of stones, great and small, that all men stood amazed.

They slung stones, and discharged arrows, and shot quarrels from winch-arblasts, and pelted us with Turkish darts and Greek fire, and kept up such a harassment of every kind against our engines and our men working at the causeway, that it was horrid either to see or to hear. Stones, darts, arrows, quarrels, and Greek fire came down on them like rain."

The Emperor Napoleon observes that the direct or grazing fire of the great arblasts may be compared to that of guns in more modern war, whilst the mangonels represent mortar-fire. And this vertical fire was by no means contemptible, at least against buildings of ordinary construction. At the sieges of Thin l'Eveque in 1340, and Auberoche in 1344, already cited, Froissart says the French cast stones in, night and day, so as in a few days to demolish all the roofs of the towers, and none within durst venture out of the vaulted basement.

The Emperor's experiments showed that these machines were capable of surprisingly accurate direction.

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