A fascinating relic of the Subcontinent during the 19th century came my way recently; a matchlock jezail rifle.
(Because it's an antique matchlock and unshootable, it's even legal to own in the UK... Or at least, it was this morning. These things change rapidly...)
A thing of beauty it ain't; it's nearly six feet long, with a little peg of a butt; the stock has been broken and repaired three times (once with brass sheet and nails, once with rawhide and once with wire). Only three of the little bone inlays remain out of thirty-odd. Two of the six barrel-bands have been replaced with painstakingly-woven wire. One sling swivel, the ramrod and the brass stock scutcheons are all missing. The barrel (*pentagonal* rather than hexagonal in section, just to be different) was hammer-welded round a mandrel, leaving a visible internal seam, and the breech-plug is hammer-welded into the breech - I wouldn't have wanted to fire the sucker when it was new, let alone now. The bore is haunted by the ghost of rifling; you can just about see it, if you hold it up to the light just right and *believe*... The lock sort of works, as much as ever it did. The muzzle is swamped and the bore at the front end isn't particularly round any more. I gave fifteen bucks for it to a guy who thought it made his antiques shop look untidy.
But; what tales it could tell, if only it could speak... You can see where the wood's been worn away by contact with the owner's shoulder, as it went with him everywhere - the thing was obviously someone's most faithful companion (it didn't get broken three times just by standing in the corner of the room); simply taking it in your hands transports you back into a different world of hardship, danger and adventure.
It's tatty and rusty and small creatures have crawled into the bore to die; but clean it up? No chance. That'd be betraying a trust.
(Because it's an antique matchlock and unshootable, it's even legal to own in the UK... Or at least, it was this morning. These things change rapidly...)
A thing of beauty it ain't; it's nearly six feet long, with a little peg of a butt; the stock has been broken and repaired three times (once with brass sheet and nails, once with rawhide and once with wire). Only three of the little bone inlays remain out of thirty-odd. Two of the six barrel-bands have been replaced with painstakingly-woven wire. One sling swivel, the ramrod and the brass stock scutcheons are all missing. The barrel (*pentagonal* rather than hexagonal in section, just to be different) was hammer-welded round a mandrel, leaving a visible internal seam, and the breech-plug is hammer-welded into the breech - I wouldn't have wanted to fire the sucker when it was new, let alone now. The bore is haunted by the ghost of rifling; you can just about see it, if you hold it up to the light just right and *believe*... The lock sort of works, as much as ever it did. The muzzle is swamped and the bore at the front end isn't particularly round any more. I gave fifteen bucks for it to a guy who thought it made his antiques shop look untidy.
But; what tales it could tell, if only it could speak... You can see where the wood's been worn away by contact with the owner's shoulder, as it went with him everywhere - the thing was obviously someone's most faithful companion (it didn't get broken three times just by standing in the corner of the room); simply taking it in your hands transports you back into a different world of hardship, danger and adventure.
It's tatty and rusty and small creatures have crawled into the bore to die; but clean it up? No chance. That'd be betraying a trust.
