66 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OE [book IV.

earthenware, badly baked on purpose, to break theeasier (that day St. Elmo showed many thousandsof them), each large enough to be thrown by aman’s hand twenty or thirty yards. The mouths ofsuch pots were narrow, and after their being chargedas above, had to be kept shut up carefully with linenor thick paper, tied very close crosswise with harque-buss cords presenting four ends covered withsulphur, first liquified, and then dried; which ends,when they are well lighted, you throw the pot,whichbreaks, and never fails setting fire to the mixture,most voraciously burning and consuming whateverit touches. Trumps are by the turner, round, con-cave tubes of wood, two palms thick in circum-ference, and three long, to be nailed or fitted tightlyto the handle of a halbert, or partisan, and filled asthe pots, only rendered more liquid by a littlelinseed oil, in such a manner that when you lightthe trump, it continues a long time snorting andbelching vivid, furious flames, and large, and severalyards long—not unlike an enormous furnace excitedby a most powerful bellows—and with a violentimpetus devours the opponent. Striking the face orhead of a man, it either kills him at once or throwshim down frightfully wounded. Pikes of war oughtto be very acutely pointed, and become pikes of firewhen you put a little of the mixture into a purse