GUN POWER IS GUNPOWDER
"No matter what we have got
The Maxim gun and they have not ."
This limerick from the South African Boer Wars celebrated their technological military superiority over the Zulu and other tribes, whose lands and mines they took.
It was brought to mind as I read a section from EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI (1865) by David and Charles Livingstone where a similar, less poetic reference is made to same:
"Here, as with the emigrant Boers of the interior of the Cape, the secret power is, the possession of gunpowder ; bowmen cannot stand the attack of muskets, and whoever possesses access to a seaport has the power of carrying on slaving to any extent; for on the East Coast there is no restriction on the introduction of arms and ammunition. The laws are quite stringent against these articles as at the Cape; but, like the 'laws' for the abolition of slavery, no one obeys them--they are only for quotation and self-glorification in Europe."
P.374
Friday, October 27, 2017
GUN POWER
GUN POWER IS GUNPOWDER
"No matter what we have got
The Maxim gun and they have not ."
This limerick from the South African Boer Wars celebrated their technological military superiority over the Zulu and other tribes, whose lands and mines they took.
It was brought to mind as I read a section from EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI (1865) by David and Charles Livingstone where a similar, less poetic reference is made to same:
"Here, as with the emigrant Boers of the interior of the Cape, the secret power is, the possession of gunpowder ; bowmen cannot stand the attack of muskets, and whoever possesses access to a seaport has the power of carrying on slaving to any extent; for on the East Coast there is no restriction on the introduction of arms and ammunition. The laws are quite stringent against these articles as at the Cape; but, like the 'laws' for the abolition of slavery, no one obeys them--they are only for quotation and self-glorification in Europe."
P.374