_Al-bunduqani_, the man who carries a _bunduq_, which in this connection is a contraction for _qaus al-bunduq_, or simply _qaus bunduq_,[189] was an epithet bestowed on Harun by the public, or assumed by himself; and in translating one of the “Arabian Nights” with this title, M. Gauttier remarks: “Bondouk signifie en Arabe harquebuse, albondoukani signifie l’arquebusier.”[190] This argument may be illustrated by a more familiar one: “Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad” (1 Sam. xx. 40); but artillery signifies cannon; therefore, &c. &c. It may be remarked that _arquebuse_ is ambiguous. “Avant d’être une arme à feu l’arquebuse était une arme à jet,” says Dr. Dozy,[191] who is supported by M. Scheler: “l’arquebuse était à son origine une sorte d’arbalète.”[192] Assuming, however, as Gauttier evidently did, that _arquebuse_ meant a firearm, his argument only establishes the use of firearms in the ninth century, if we take _signifie_ as equivalent to _means now, in the year 1822, and meant also in the time of Harun_. The question, therefore, turns upon the meaning of the words _bunduq_, or _qaus bunduq_, in the time of the great Caliph, and an anecdote told by Masudi leaves no doubt about what that meaning was.[193] He tells us that in the time of Muhtadi Billah, 868-9, a negligent porter was sentenced by his master to be tied up (apparently in a room or courtyard) and shot at fifty times by a man armed with a _qaus bunduq_, which carried leaden _bunduq_. There is not the slightest allusion to charge, cartridge, gunpowder, wad, or match, nor to the operation of loading. The ammunition consisted solely of leaden balls. Although the marksman sent his fifty _bunduq_ home, the porter was so little the worse for his punishment that, when all was over, he made a coarse but cutting remark to his tormentor. There can be no question of firearms here: one, or at most two bullets fired by so good a shot from any firearm ever constructed would have silenced the porter for ever. The marksman was _al-bunduqani_, the _bunduq_ were leaden balls, and the _qaus bunduq_ was a pellet-bow = stone-bow[194] = كلوله كمان (golulé keman) = _golail_, used to this day by the Karens of Burma, and known to everybody who has been in India. Such is the explanation of _qaus bunduq_ given by the commentator Tabrizi in a note on one of Motanebbi’s poems—a bow which discharges a ball as big as a hazel nut.[195] The bow itself is a long-bow with two strings joined at their centre by a bit of cloth or soft leather, which supports a ball generally of baked clay or stone. If Hansard’s plate be correct, the western stone-bow was a cross-bow with two strings.[196] The golail, as we learn from one of the oldest of the “Arabian Nights,” was chiefly used for shooting birds, squirrels, &c.: “he shooteth birds with a pellet of clay,”[197] ببندقة من طين. Again, when the first Kalandar missed his bird and hit the Wazir in the eye, he was using a _qaus al-bunduq_,[198] قوس النبدق.