Muskets for Africa

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 12, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 31.

Muskets for Africa.

MUSKETS for the interior of Africa are still made in Birmingham, with the flint-lock and priming-pan of a century ago, and for this reason, that, while powder can be made and flints collected in the very midst of the desert sands of the Soudan or the Sahara, it would be a work of risk or of impossibility to import percussion caps or cartridges adapted to central-fire or hammerless guns; and, on similar grounds, the long barrel retains its supremacy as a weapon of offense in those regions to the present day. When the trader from Tripoli visits Valetta, he

may be seen carefully measuring the lengthy tubes which are exhibited in the gunsmith's show-cases, in order that he may find a weapon of sufficient caliber for the coarse and slack shooting powder he is compelled to use.—Blackwood's Magazine.