There Is Not Much Variety In These Places, One Cavern And One Gun
Resembling The Other.
As for the guns, they are not of large
calibre, indeed, such are not needed here, where a pebble
Discharged from so great an altitude would be fraught with death.
On descending a shaft, however, I observed, in one cave of special
importance, two enormous carronades looking with peculiar
wickedness and malignity down a shelving rock, which perhaps,
although not without tremendous difficulty, might be scaled. The
mere wind of one of these huge guns would be sufficient to topple
over a thousand men. What sensations of dread and horror must be
awakened in the breast of a foe when this hollow rock, in the day
of siege, emits its flame, smoke, and thundering wind from a
thousand yawning holes; horror not inferior to that felt by the
peasant of the neighbourhood when Mongibello belches forth from all
its orifices its sulphureous fires.
Emerging from the excavations, we proceeded to view various
batteries. I asked the sergeant whether his companions and himself
were dexterous at the use of the guns. He replied that these
cannons were to them what the fowling-piece is to the fowler, that
they handled them as easily, and, he believed, pointed them with
more precision, as they seldom or never missed an object within
range of the shot. This man never spoke until he was addressed,
and then the answers which he gave were replete with good sense,
and in general well worded.
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