Chapter XV.
Progress of the Crusade.
1191
Richard leaving Acre.
Modern warfare.
The first thing which Richard had now to do, before commencing a march into the interior of the country, was to set every thing in order at Acre, and to put the place in a good condition of defense, in case it should be attacked while he was gone. The walls in many places were to be repaired, particularly where they had been undermined by Richard's sappers, and in many places, too, they had been broken down or greatly damaged by the action of the battering-rams and other engines. In the case of sieges prosecuted by means of artillery in modern times, the whole interior of the town, as well as the walls, is usually battered dreadfully by the shot and shells that are thrown over into it. A shell, which is a hollow ball of iron sometimes more than a foot in diameter, and with sides two or three inches thick, and filled within with gunpowder, is thrown from a mortar, at a distance of some miles, high into the air over the town, whence it descends into the streets or among the houses. The engraving represents the form of the mortar, and the manner in which the shell is thrown from it, though in this case the shell represented is directed, not against the town, but is thrown from a battery under the walls of the town against the camp or the trenches of the besiegers.
THROWING SHELLS.
Contrast between modern and ancient weapons.