Cairo, or Grand Cairo. The modern capital of Egypt, partially built by the Saracens in 969; it is surrounded by stone walls which are surmounted with antique battlements; taken by the Turks from the Egyptian sultans, 1517; taken by the French under Napoleon Bonaparte; they entered the city July 23, 1798; captured by the British and Turks, when 6000 French capitulated, June 27, 1801; massacre of the Mamelukes, March 1, 1811.
Caisson. In gunnery, is a carriage used for conveying ammunition for a field battery. It is a four-wheeled carriage, consisting of two parts, one of which is a limber similar to that of a gun-carriage, and connected in a similar way by a wooden stock and lunette. On the axle-body of the rear part, and parallel to the stock, are placed three rails upon which are fastened two ammunition-boxes, one behind the other, and similar to the one on the limber; so that the caisson has three ammunition-boxes, which will seat nine cannoneers. The interior compartments of the ammunition-boxes vary according to the nature of the ammunition with which they are loaded. In the rear of the last box is placed a spare wheel-axle of iron, with a chain and toggle at the end of it. On the rear end of the middle rail is placed a carriage-hook similar to a pintle-hook, to which the lunette of a gun-carriage whose limber has become disabled may be attached, and the gun carried off the field. The caisson has the same turning capacity and mobility as the gun-carriage, so that it can follow the piece in all its manœuvres, if necessary. It also carries a spare wheel, spare pole, etc. See [Ordnance, Carriages for, The Caisson].
Cake-powder. See [Gunpowder].
Caking. To prevent powder caking, the barrels should be taken outside the magazine and rolled on boards.
Calabozo. A town of Venezuela, South America; it was captured by Bolivar, 1820.
Calabria (anc. Messapia). A region of Southern Italy; it was conquered by the Romans 266 B.C. It formed part of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, 493; was reconquered (for the Eastern empire) by Belisarius, 536; subdued by the Lombards and joined the duchy of Benevento, 572. After various changes, it was conquered by Robert Guiscard, the Norman, 1058.
Calabuss. An early kind of light musket with a wheel-lock. Bourne mentions it in 1578.
Calagurris (now Calahorra, Spain). A town of the Vascones and a Roman municipium in Hispania Tarraconensis, near the Iberus (Ebro), memorable for its adherence to Sertorius and for its siege by Pompey and his generals (78 B.C.), in the course of which mothers killed and salted their children.
Calais. A fortified seaport town of France, department of Pas-de-Calais, on the Strait of Dover. The town and harbor are defended by a castle and several forts, and can be rendered inaccessible by land by flooding the adjacent ground, which is low and marshy. It was taken by Edward III. after a year’s siege in August, 1347; retaken by the Duke of Guise, January, 1558. It was taken by the Spaniards, April, 1596; restored, 1598. Louis XVIII. landed here in 1814, after his exile.
Calasiries, or Calosires. One of the two divisions (the other being the Hermotybii) of the warrior-caste of Egypt. Their greatest strength was 250,000 men, and their chief abode in the western part of the Delta. They formed the king’s body-guard.