In the East, however, the employment of incendiary weapons was constant, and the variety of them very great. An Arabic treatise of this century, published in the work named above by MM. Reinaud and Favé, gives us the most curious information relating to them, and the interest of the manuscript is heightened by its containing drawings (somewhat rude, it is true) of the principal instruments and engines described. From this "Treatise on the Art of Fighting," by Hassan Alrammah, we learn that the Arabs of the thirteenth century employed their incendiary compositions in four different ways: they cast them by hand; they fixed them to staves, with which they attacked their enemies; they poured forth the fire through tubes; and they projected burning mixtures of various kinds by means of arrows, javelins, and the missiles of the great engines resembling the trebuchets and mangonæ of their Western neighbours. Among these fire-weapons we have--"Balles de verre; Pots à feu; La Maison de feu; Massue de guerre; Massue pour asperger; Lance de guerre; Lance à fleurs; Lance avec massue; La lance avec la flèche du Khatay; Flèches en roseau; Flèches du mangonneau; Flèches de la Chine; Marmite de l'Irac; Marmite de Mokharram; Vase de Helyledjeh; Cruche de Syrie (the last four for the mangonel); L'œuf qui se meut et qui brûle (Captain Favé takes this to be a projectile on the principle of our rockets); Dard du Khatay; Des Coupes; Des Volants; Des Lunes," &c.
The vessels of glass and pottery, discharged by hand or by machines, were so contrived that on striking the object at which they were aimed, their contents spread around, and the fire, already communicated by a fusee, enveloped everything within its reach. A soldier on whose head was broken a fire-mace, became suddenly soaked with a diabolical fluid, which covered him from head to foot with flame; and a flame of so terrible a nature that it was believed to be absolutely inextinguishable. The receipt for making the Massue de Guerre is given with great particularity: "Tu feras faire par le verrier une massue, &c. Ensuite tu feras les mélanges usités, &c. Tu mettras le feu à la massue et tu la briseras pour le service de Dieu[390]." One of the lances is furnished with a firework "so that the spear shall burn the enemy, after having wounded him with its point." Another lance "brulera bien et s' étendra à plus de mille coudées." It will be remembered that the Arabic superlative is commonly expressed by "a thousand." What we learn, therefore, is that this fire-missile was contrived to wound at a distance. In applying the Massue à asperger, you are to break it against the person of your antagonist, "but keep out of the current of the wind, lest the sparks return upon and burn you." The machines for casting forth the fire-pots and vases of larger dimension bear so close a resemblance to the trebuchets and mangonas in use by the Christian nations, that Captain Favé is inclined to think that the latter warriors copied their engines from those of the Arabs during the Crusades (p. 49).