It is stated in MSS. 826-8, _Bib. Nat._, Paris, that in 917 A.H. (A.D. 1511-12) Modhaffer Shah of Gujarat sent to Kansuh, King of Egypt, asking him for arms and cannon to enable the Gujaratis to defend themselves against the Europeans; “the people of India not having hitherto possessed Artillery of any kind.”[265] In answer to this request, Hossain was sent to sea in command of a considerable fleet. If Mahmoud possessed ships with guns in 1482, how came it that in 1511 the Gujaratis were sending round the world begging for firearms? Had Mahmoud merely hired for the occasion from the Arabs the ships and guns with which he crushed the Bulsar pirates? It is impossible to say categorically; but two facts may be extracted from the foregoing conflicting statements—first, that firearms were used by Arab and Portuguese ships on the west coast of India before the Hindus possessed them, and secondly, that there was an espingarda in the town of Calicut in 1498. Whatever doubt there may be about the exact date at which the natives of Western India first procured firearms from the foreign ships which visited their shores, there can be none about the first employment of artillery in Upper India. As has been already stated, the machines of the Greeks were adopted at an early period by the Persians, from whom they were eventually borrowed by the Arabs, Mughals, &c. The Hindus in turn adopted the machines they saw employed by their invaders and named them, according to their custom, after the part of the world they came from—_maghribíha_ = _western_ (machines or manjaník). At the abortive attack on Rantambhor, 1290, Sultan Jalalu-d Din ordered Westerns to be erected.[266] The Hindus had collected materials for making incendiaries before being besieged in the same fortress by Sultan Alau-d Din in 1300. “Every day the fire of those infernals fell on the light of the Moslems, and, as there were no means of extinguishing it, they filled bags with clay and prepared entrenchments.... The Royal Westerns shot large earthen balls against that infidel fort.... The stones from the ballistas and catapults within and without the fort encountered each other half-way and emitted lightening.”[267] During the attack on Arangal, 1309, the Westerns “were played on both sides and many were wounded.”[268] The mud walls were so strong and elastic that the balls of the Westerns rebounded off them “like nuts which children play with.”[269] Eventually the “western stone-balls” formed a breach and the fort fell. Such is the account given by Amir Khusru who died in 1315, of whom Sir H. M. Elliot says (vi. 465):—“He is full of illustrations and leaves no manner of doubt that nothing like gunpowder was known to him.” Near the close of the century, 1398-9, the Hindus besieged by Timur in Bhatnir “cast down in showers arrows and stones and fireworks upon the heads of the assailants.”[270] At the attack on Chanderi, 1527-8, “the Pagans exerted themselves to the utmost,