A .577 Snider-Enfield infantry rifle ....

[RattlesnakeJack]

Mucking about with some images tonight, I produced this pic incorporating my Canadian-marked Mark II" .577 Snider-Enfield rifle.  Although adopted as a stop-gap breechloader by Britain, and replaced by them with the .577/.450 Martini-Henry in 1874, the Snider-Enfield remained the primary military longarm of Canada from 1867 through 1897 ....

[Trailrider]

"A Snider squibbed in the forest,
    Someone laughed and fled,
And the men of the 1st Shikari
    picked up their subaltern, dead,
W' a neat blue 'ole in 'is fore'ead,
    An' the back blown out of 'is 'ead!"

-Rudyard Kipling

Your obedient servant,
Trailrider

[RattlesnakeJack]

Ah, yes - "The Grave of the Hundred Head" ....

A few more selected stanzas:

..... For they swore by the Holy Water,
  They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
  Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
  To open him Heaven's gate.
.....

Long was the morn of slaughter,
  Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
  Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
  Went back to their grave again,
....

They made a pile of their trophies
  High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
  Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
  Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.
....

Then a silence came to the river,
  A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
  And Sniders squibbed no more;
    For the Burmans said
    That a white man's head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.