ABSTRACT

The organization of the armed forces is not known.410 The weapons that were in use (apart from static defence works like pallisades, barricades, walls and bastions, or such items that were thought of in emergency cases, such as sunken ships to blockade a harbour or elephants to frighten the enemy in street-fighting) were the following : longbows (uta)—as well as crossbows in the 16th centuiy-and arrows (mshare, chembe) some with iron, others with hardwood heads; swords of various types,411 daggers (jambiya), spears (mkuki, fumo), shields; matchlocks and cannon, catapults and stone-throwers. The crossbow is now obsolete, but survives in the form of a trap. The longbow was used side by side with firearms until some decades ago, but latterly especially by the allied bands of Nyika, Boni, etc., and by slave contingents. Cannon, on the other hand (after 1500), rapidly superseded stone-throwing implements and were apparently widely used, both in ships and behind ramparts, as ruins of town walls testify.