Leather Cannon? Curiosa

[Jim McDougall]

I decided to leave my previous post to illustrate that you never stop learning when researching this stuff!!

The mystery of the leather cannons continues:

These cannon are mentioned in a travel guide on Nepal, "The Rough Guide to Nepal" (D.Reed, J.McConnachie, 2002, p.134); "...these leather cannon captured during a skirmish with Tibet in 1792 are genuine rarities".

Perhaps not so rare, nor Tibetan, as noted as follows in a reference referring to the 1788-1792 war between Nepal and Tibet (it would seem more than a skirmish),
In "The High Road to China" (Kate Teltscher, 2007) on p.245, the author discussing The Qianlong emperor of Manchu China in his intervention against the Gurkhas in this 'skirmish', notes that "...special lightweight leather cannon were supplied for easy manueverability".

The suggestion is of course that these type cannon were in fact likely Chinese, and apparantly intended to be used.

In reviewing whether leather cannon were used in Tibet, I found the following article from New York Times, June 6,1904 ("Open War on Tibet") regarding the Younghusband expedition, "...two small cannon found concealed in Palla village represent the heaviest ordnance yet to be found used by the Tibetans. The report that they have ever employed leather cannon is incorrect".

Further, regarding the plausibility of leather as material for cannon, from "The Gun and its Development" (W.W.Greener, 1907), "...various substitutes for metal have been used for constructing cannon and mortars. Leather was probably the most successful; it was often used by the Venetians, sometimes with hempen rope, sometimes alone. A leather cannon was fired three times at Kings Park, Edinburgh in October, 1788".

Apparantly, leather was indeed viable, and it seems that these captured examples may have been the transportable Chinese examples.

Best regards,
Jim