The variety and sizes of these arms were really laughable.

Some niggers had old-fashioned Sniders, others elephant guns, and the remainder weapons with enormously long barrels, which looked as if they dated back to Waterloo.

To their owners, however, the maker or the epoch of the weapon mattered little.

They were proud men, and stalked gravely along the streets with their precious rifles, evidently feeling such a sense of security as they had never experienced before.
On the Sunday I alluded to, after our ride we attended morning service, held as usual in the neat little church, which, with the exception of a few gashes in the ceiling rafters, caused by fragments of shell, had up to date escaped serious injury.

The Dutch Church, on the other hand, curiously enough, was almost demolished by shell-fire at the beginning of the siege.