Chapter XXIII: Conclusion (4)

[253] The well-known inscription on the tomb of Midas, and another given by Texier (_Asie Mineure_, ii. 57) show the Phrygian tongue to have been a congener of Greek. Even the _Békos_ of Herodotus (ii. 2) is allied to our ‘bake,’ and _Bédu_ to our ‘water.’ We are greatly in want of further information about Phrygia, and it is to be hoped that Colonel Wilson and Mr. W. M. Ramsay will complete the labours of Texier and Hamilton.

[254] The Aryans of Herodotus, about the Arius river (_Heri-rúd_), are an undistinguished tribe, a mere satrapy. Strabo’s Aria (xi. 9) is a tract about 250 by 40 miles. In Pliny (vi. 23) Ariana includes only the lands of the Gedrosi (Mekran), the Arachoti (Kandahár), the Arii proper (Herat), and the Parapomisadæ (Kabul). It has been truly said that even if Aryan and Turanian man (first) centred in and emerged from these areas (the table-lands of Asia), the so-called history is entirely based on the philological discoveries of the Sanskritist school.

[255] Therasia and Therassia, now Santorin. Here have been found ruins of prehistoric cities buried by the great central volcano. According to most geologists the latter was exhausted in B.C. 1800–1700.

[256] I have personally noticed this, and described it in _Midian Revisited_, vol. i. p. 143.

[257] Beckmann (_s.v._ ‘Tin’) tells us that the metal ‘never occurs in a native state.’ He forgets stream-tin. He also denies that the oldest ‘cassiteron’ and ‘stannum’ were tin; and considers them to mean the German _Werk_, a regulus of silver and lead. His _vasa stannea_ are vessels covered with tin in the inside. In the fourth century ‘plumbum candidum’ or ‘album’ was superseded by ‘stannum.’ Speaking of electrum, Beckmann asserts that ‘the ancients were not acquainted with the art of separating gold and silver.’ ‘Britain,’ Ynis Prydhain Island, where the god Prydhain was worshipped, or rather ‘Isle of the Brythons,’ has been fancifully derived by the energetic Semitiser from Barrat-et-Tanuk = Land of Tin.

[258] Ezekiel tells us that the Tyrians received tin, as well as other metals, from Tarshish, or Western Tartessus, in the Bay of Gibraltar.

[259] M. Emile Burnouf, ‘L’Age de Bronze,’ _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1877, also brings tin from Banca. The island is about 150 miles long by 36 broad; it has no mountain backbone, but the peak of Goonong Maras rises some 3,000 feet above the sea-level. Chinese coolies still work the mines of Mintok, and in 1852 the yearly yield was some 50,000 piculs (each = 133⅓ lbs.) at the cost of nine rupees per picul.

[260] Beckmann (_loc. cit._), like Michaelis, is surprised at the Midianites possessing tin in the days of Moses. These were the views of the last century. I have suggested (_Athenæum_, Nov. 24, 1880) that the old Nile-dwellers extended through Midian to El-Hejáz and El-Yemen, where they worked the mines which became known to the Hebrews.

[261] In 1866 De Rougemont made Phœnicia supply bronze to Europe, the copper being brought from Cyprus. Besides the Mediterranean, we find a Uralian and a Danubian branch of the industry. Before 1877 France had supplied 650 bronze Swords and daggers, Sweden 480, and Switzerland 86.

[262] _Alias_ the Œstrymnides. Borlase was of opinion that the group formed one block, with several headlands, of which ‘Scilly’ was the highest, outermost, and most conspicuous. He conjectures the original name to be _Syllé_, _Sulla_, or _Sulleh_, a flat rock dedicated to the sun; hence the Lat. _Siliræ_, _Silures_, and _Sigdeles_; the Engl. _Sylley_, _Scilley_, and lately _Scilly_; the Fr. _Sorlingues_; and the Span. _Sorlingas_. The Keltic name of the chief feature was Inis Caer.

[263] _Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Part II. ‘The Archaic or Bronze Period.’ Daniel Wilson.

[264] Pliny represents the Cassiterides as fronting Celtiberia. He considers it a ‘fabulous story’ that the Greeks fetched ‘white lead’ from the islands of the Adriatic.

[265] _Prehistoric Times_, by Sir John Lubbock, 4th edit. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1878.)

[266] The identification is not settled; some propose the Isle of Thanet.

[267] Beckmann, _sub voce_ ‘Tin.’

[268] According to Messrs. Wibel, Fellemberg, and Damour, who investigated even 10/1000 parts, the average proportions were ⅒ tin to 9 copper; and ¼ tin for hard metal, as chisels, &c. M. E. Chauntre, _Age de Bronze_. 3 vols. (Paris: Baudry.)

[269] The late General Uchatius, who ‘trusted in princes,’ and whose tragical death was greatly lamented by his friends, always declared that he had rediscovered (not discovered) the hardening of copper and bronze; and that he hoped to arrive at other secrets. His career was cut short before he learned to make the metal and the alloy resilient.

[270] _Thut_, _Tuth_, _Toth_, _Thoth_, &c., the moon-god who became Hermes Trismegistus.

[271] Phosphor-bronze, for whose manufacture companies are now established in London and elsewhere, has the ordinary composition with the addition of red or amorphous phosphorus dropped upon the melted metal in the crucible. Berthier (_Traité des Essais_, ii. 410) states that a very small quantity of phosphorus renders copper extremely hard and suitable for cutting instruments. Percy (_Metallurgy_) found that copper will take up 11 per cent. of phosphorus; the metal, which assumes a grey tint, is quite homogeneous, and so hard that it can scarcely be touched by the file. The addition of phosphorus promotes the reduction of the oxides, and enables an exceedingly sound and durable casting to be made; but if it exceed ½ per cent. the metal becomes very brittle. Dr. Percy has described phosphor-silver, phosphor-lead, and phosphor-iron. The phosphorus is, according to some authorities, apt to volatilise with time. At present a new form of bronze, the antimonial, in proportions of 1–2 per cent., is coming into fashion: it is said to be malleable and ductile, and to resist torsion in a high degree. Another new bronze is the aluminium, whose price has been reduced from 1,000_l._ to 100_l._ per ton by Mr. Webster, of Hollywood, near Birmingham.

[272] So called from Cape Emeri in Naxos.

[273] Appendix to Layard’s _Nineveh and Babylon_ (London: Murray). The proportions are nearly those of our day. We may assume our common bronze at 11:100 for large, and 10:100 for small objects. Cymbals and sounding instruments, however, contain tin 22:copper 78.

[274] Analysed by Mr. Robinson of Pimlico (Day, p. 110).

[275] Schliemann’s _Troy_, p. 361 (London: Murray, 1875).

[276] Sir W. Gell found the bronze nails in the ‘Treasury of Atreus’ composed of 12 tin to 88 copper. The Trojan battle-axes, according to Dr. Schliemann, yielded only 4, 8, and 9 per cent. of the former metal.

[277] According to Helbig, the Palafittes and Terramare villagers had spears but not Swords.

[278] For the tin-ore of Peru see _Ethnolog. Journal_, vol. lxx. pp. 258–261. Rivero, p. 230, and Garcilasso, vol. i. p. 202.

[279] _Amer. Journ. of Science, &c._ v. 42; July 1866.

[280] From descriptions and drawings by Mr. J. H. Godfrey, Mining Engineer-in-Chief to the Imperial Government of Japan.

[281] M.D., F.R.S., ‘Observations on some Metallic Arms and Utensils, with Experiments to determine their Composition.’ Royal Soc. London, June 9, 1796. _Philosophical Transactions._

[282] Taken from Dr. Evans (_Bronze Impl. &c._ chap. xxi.). He compiled it from Martineau & Smith’s _Hardware Trade Journal_ (April 30, 1879).

[283] Wilkinson remarked that the Egyptian proportions of half tin and half copper were whitish.

[284] Lord Rosse, in casting specula, preferred using copper and tin in their atomic proportions, or 68·21 per cent. copper to 31·79 per cent. tin.

[285] _Speltrum_ was introduced by Boyle. During the last century much zinc was imported from India (possibly supplied by China), and was called tutenag.

[286] Bohn’s _Trans._ ii. 32–45. The learned German begins by stating that zinc was not known to the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, and then proceeds to prove that it was. The word ‘zinc’ (from _zenken_ or _zacken_, nails, spikes?) first occurs in the works of the Iatro-chemist, Paracelsus, who died in A.D. 1541.

[287] _Blende_ is a generic word, from _blenden_, to dazzle.

[288] Mongez, _Mém. de l’Institut_.

[289] At Goslar, however, according to Lohnriss, brass was made in A.D. 1617.

[290] Pliny, xxxiii. 27. The solder (χρυσός and κόλλα, glue, or κόλλησις) is attributed by Herod. (i. 25) to Glaucus of Chios, a contemporary of Alyattes. The word _kóllesis_ is variously rendered ‘soldering,’ ‘brazing,’ ‘welding,’ and ‘inlaying.’ Kóllesis was used to agglutinate metals, and treated with a peculiar alkali (Pliny, xxxiii. 24). The ‘gold glue’ (_chrysocolla_) is usually understood to be a hydrosilicate of copper; not to be confounded with the χρυσόκολλα or borax. The Mycenian goldsmiths soldered with the help of borax (borate of soda): Professor Landerer, of Athens, found this salt on an old medal from Ægina. It was called in the Middle Ages, Borax Venetus, because imported by the Venetians from Persia; and it is the Tinkal of modern India. According to Pliny, lead cannot be soldered without tin, or tin without lead, and oil invariably must be used. Later usage substituted for the latter colophonium and other resins: we now solder by means of electricity. The same writer makes Nero use chrysocolla-powder (a siliceous carbonate of copper, a kind of blue-stone which would turn green by exposure to damp) for strewing the circus, to give the course the colour of his favourite faction, the _Prasine_ (green).

[291] The Germans, who delight in German derivatives for European words, would find _leiton_, &c., not in _luteum_, but in _löthen_ = to unite. There is little doubt, however, that the first English manufactory of calamine brass at Esher, in Surrey, was set up in the seventeenth century by Demetrius, a German. In Grimm’s _Dictionary_, as noticed by Demmin (chap. i), bronze is erroneously called _messing_ (brass).

[292] Derived from ὄρος, οὖρος (mountain), or from Ὀρείος, the discoverer. Metallic names in Greek are mostly masculine; in Latin and modern usage, neutral. _Oreichalcum_ or _aurichalcum_, a hybrid word, became _aurochalcum_ in the ninth century: the last corruption (middle of the sixteenth century) was _archal_.

[293] _De l’Orichalque._ J. P. Rossignol (_loc. cit._).

[294] Some translate this word ‘yellow frankincense’ (λίβανος) colour; others derive it from Λίβανος, the Lebanon, and make it male, _argurolibanus_, while _leucolibanus_ (white) was female. Finally, the word was explained by the old interpreters to be = ὀρείχαλκος = brass of Mount (Lebanon).

[295] The tradition of Atlantis, a middle-land in the Atlantic, has strong claims to our acceptance. The identity of the site with the ‘Dolphin’s Ridge,’ a volcanic formation, and the shallows noted by H.M.S. ‘Challenger,’ have been ably pleaded in _Atlantis_ (Ignatius Donnelly; London: Sampson Low, 1882). Perhaps we may trace the vestiges in Saint Paul’s Rocks, the remarkable group of rocky islets situate in the equatorial mid-Atlantic. Mr. Darwin supposed the group to be an isolated example of non-volcanic oceanic insularity; but Prof. Renard finds the ‘balance of proof decidedly in favour of the volcanic origin of the rock.’ It will be remembered that Atlantis was dismembered by earthquakes, eruptions, and subsidence.

[296] Quoted by Percy from Watson’s _Chemical Essays_ (iv. p. 85, 1786).

[297] The artificial mixture of copper (four fifths) and gold (one-fifth) was called _pyropus_ (Pliny, xxxiv. 2), from its fiery red tint; it was also made of gold and bronze, and termed _chrysochalcos_, ‘the king of metals.’ _Æs corinthiacum_ (Pliny, xxxiv. 3), or Corinthian brass, used for mirrors, composed of copper, silver (steel? zinc?), and gold, was more valuable than gold. According to Pausanias (ii. 3, § 3), this malleable and ductile metal was tempered in the Fountain of Pyrene. The vulgar legend, refuted by Pliny, who tells the tale (xxxiv. 6), dates it from the days of Mummius (B.C. 146). A medal of Corinthian brass was analysed by the Duc de Luynes. Pliny (xxxiv. 3) mentions three kinds, _candidum_, _luteum_, and _hepatizon_ (liver-colour), of equal quantities of metal; this probably resembled our own alloys. Beckmann (_sub voc._ ‘Zinc’ and ‘Tin’) gives a list of these and other compositions, Mannheim gold, Dutch gold, Prince’s metal, Bristol brass, &c.

[298] Possibly the Armenian bole (Bol-i-Armani), used in the East as a flux from time immemorial. The ‘dropping’ or ‘distilling’ (_per descensum_) must allude to a distillatory or condensing apparatus, and the ‘false silver’ cannot be mercury, lead, or tin.

[299] Hence _tutaneg_ and _tutanego_, which sometimes meant an alloy of tin and bismuth. M. Polo (i. 21) describes ‘tutia’ as very good for the eyes; and his notice of it, and of spodium, reads, according to Colonel Yule, almost like a condensed translation of Galen’s pompholyx, produced from cadmia or carbonate of zinc; and spodos, the residue of the former, which falls on the hearth (_De Simp. Med._ p. ix.). Matthioli makes pompholyx commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name ‘tutia.’ The ‘tutia’ imported into Bombay from the Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, moulded into tubular cakes, and baked to a moderate hardness.

[300] Masc. and fem.; the neut. ἤλεκτρον is the purest form. Dr. Schliemann, noticing that it also means ‘amber’ (_Mycenæ_, p. 204), derives it from ‘_elek_, signifying resin in Arabic (?), and probably also in Phœnician (?).’ He found earrings of electrum in the so-called ‘Trojan Stratum,’ 30½ feet below the surface (_Troy_, p. 164). The _guanin_ or _gianin_ of the Chiriquis was an aururet (electrum) of 19·3 per cent. of pure gold, with specific gravity 11·55. The _tombac_ or _tombag_ of New Granada, used for statuettes, was also a gold of low standard: 63 gold, 24 silver, 9 copper. Usually ‘tombac’ applies to an alloy like Mannheim gold; the manufacture was introduced into Birmingham, still its chief seat, by the Turner family, A.D. 1740.

[301] ‘Elektron,’ however, is generally translated ‘amber’; and it may be the _harpax_, or drawer, for it occurs in the same verse with ivory. Amber beads and weapon-handles were amongst Dr. Schliemann’s finds. Rossignol (p. 347) supposes that electrum, the pale-yellow or amber-coloured alloy of gold and silver, gave a name to the gum amber.

[302] This text, stating a truth concerning native gold, suggests amongst many that the ancients knew the _départ_, or separation, of metals. It has been vehemently doubted whether they could mineralise the white metal; that is, convert it to sulphide and allow the gold to subside.

[303] Rossignol quotes Zonaras, Suidas, and John Pediasimus to prove this position.

[304] We now lacquer with shell-lac dissolved in proof-spirit and coloured with ‘dragon’s blood.’

[305] The lead was found in even larger proportions. See chap. xiii.

[306] In my commentary on Camoens (_Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads_), and again in _To the Gold Coast for Gold_ (i. 17), I have attempted to identify Western Tarshish or Tartessus with Carteia in the Bay of Gibraltar. Newton makes Melcarth ‘King of Carteia’; but the word may mean either ‘city-king’ (_Malik-el-Karyat_), or ‘earth-king’ (_Malik-el-Arz_).

[307] The well-known anthropologist, M. G. de Mortillet, holds that the oldest type of bronze celt in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, is that with straight flanges at the sides. This was followed by the celt with transverse stop-ridge, by the true winged tool, by the socketed adaptation, and, lastly, by the simple flat tool wanting rib or flange, wing or socket, and formed of pure copper as well as of bronze. Archæologists usually determine the last form to be the earliest; but M. de Mortillet judges otherwise from the conditions under which the finds occur.

[308] This weapon (_gladius_) is a Sword-blade, double-edged or single-edged, straight or curved, and 4–9 inches long, much used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It originated from the old practice of binding the sickle, scythe, axe, hatchet, or Sword to the end of a pole and thus forming a pike.

[309] The Amazons of the Mausoleum (Newton, _Halicarnassus_, p. 235) are armed with axe, bow, and Sword; the Greeks with javelins and Swords.

[310] The Massagetæ (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getæ, and both used the _sagaris_. But while some authors translate the word _securis_, others call it a ‘kind of Sword,’ and others confuse it with the ἀκινάκης, the _acinaces_ which the Greek mentions separately (iv. 62, viii. 67). Strabo (xi. 8) connects the Massagetæ (Goths) with the _Sacæ_ (Saxons), and Major Jähn derives _Sacæ_ (the _Shaka_ of the Hindus) from _Saighead_ = _Sagitta_. The term ‘_Saxones_’ was later than the age of Tacitus, and we first find it in the days of Antoninus Pius. ‘Brevis gladius apud illos (_Saxones_) _Saxo_ vocatur’ suggests that the _Seax_ was connected with the race of old (_Trans. Anthrop. Instit._ May 1880).

[311] _Loc. cit._ p. 43.

[312] Egypt. _akhu_, Lat. _ascia_, Germ. _Axt_. The oldest form is ‘_aks_’ (_securis_), the bipennis, ‘_dversahs_,’ and the dolabrum ‘_barte_.’ In Lower Saxon _axt_ is ‘_exe_,’ a congener of our ‘axe.’

[313] The word is variously written and explained.

[314] A _silepe_ from the armoury of King Mosesh was shown at the National Exhibition amongst objects from Natal (Col. A. Lane Fox, _Cat._ p. 145).

[315] Par Lacombe (Paris, Hachette, 1868).

[316] I have again noticed the _sahs_, _seax_, _sax_, and _scramasax_ in chap. xiii.

[317] Our ‘bill’ is the German _Beil_, the _securis_, or axe. Both words appear to me congeners of the Greek βέλος, Sword or dart, showing a missile-age, from βάλλειν, to throw; not, as Jähn thinks, from the Sanskrit _bhil_. Robert Barret (1598) preferred the pike, although owning that the bill had done good service. Even of late years Messrs. John Mitchel and Meagher (‘of the Sword’) advised the wretched Irish peasants to make pikes out of reaping-hooks.

[318] _Prehistoric Times_, p. 20. The Dublin Museum contains 1,283 articles of the Bronze Age.

[319] I assume as a type, the bronze Sword (Tafel iv.) in _Die Alterthümer von Hallstätten, Salzburg, &c._ by Friedrich Simony (Wien, 1851).

[320] Pliny, xxxiv. 39.

[321] The word comes from the root which gave the Persian _áhan_; the Irish _iaran_ or _yarann_; the Welsh _hiarn_; the Armorican _uarn_; the Gothic _eisarn_; the Danish _iern_; the Swedish _iarn_; the Cimbric _jara_; the German _Eisen_, and the Latin _ferrum_, with the neo-Latin _ferro_, _hierro_ (Span.), &c. From _iaran_ also we derive _Harnisch_, harness.

[322] The unfortunate Cretans gained the name of ‘ever liars’ (ἀεὶ ψεῦσται) for telling what was probably the truth. They showed in their island the grave of Jupiter, who must have been originally some hero or chief deified after his death—evidently one of the origins of worship. The evil report began with Callimachus (_Hymn. in Jov._ 8); and was continued in the proverbial τρία κάππα κάκιστα (Krete, Kappadocia, and Kilikia). Hence the syllogistic puzzle of Eubulides: ‘Epimenides said that the Cretans are liars: Epimenides is a Cretan: _ergo_, Epimenides is a liar: _ergo_, the Cretans are not liars: _ergo_, Epimenides is not a liar.’

[323] Chap. iv. The Chalybs of Justin (xliv. 3) is a river between the Ana (Guadiana) and the Tagus; called by Ptolemy and Martianus, Κάλιπους or Κάλιπος. Æschylus alludes to the original Chalybes when he personifies the Sword as the ‘Chalybian stranger,’ and in the same tragedy (_Seven against Thebes_) he entitles it ‘the hammer-wrought Scythian steel.’

[324] ‘To the abundance of iron we may attribute the fact that the Africans appear to have passed direct from the stone implements, that are now found in the soil, to those of iron, without passing through the intermediate bronze period which, in Egypt and other countries, intervened between the ages of stone and iron.’—_Anthropol. Coll._ pp. 128–134.

[325] ‘The High Antiquity of Iron and Steel,’ a valuable paper read before the Philos. Soc. Glasgow, printed in _Iron_ (1875–76), and kindly sent to me by the editor, Mr. Nursey; also _The Prehistoric Use of Iron and Steel_ (Trübner, London, 1877), from which Mr. Day has allowed me to make extracts.

[326] The question is to be determined by facts, not theories. Hitherto we are justified in believing, from the skeletons dug up at great depths, or found in caves associated with the mammals which they destroyed, that Man in prehistoric times was of a low physical, and therefore mental type. We shall believe the opposite view when we are shown ancient crania equal, if not superior, to those of the present day—relics that will revive the faded glories of ‘Father Adam’ and ‘Mother Eve.’ But, meanwhile, we cannot be expected to believe in _ipse dixits_, inspired or uninspired.

[327] For instance, in North-Western Europe, the early iron age began about A.D. 250, according to Konrad Englehardt (_Denmark in the early Iron Age_, p. 4, London, 1866), quoted by Mr. Day.

[328] _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_, vol. v.; London, Longmans, 1867, with additions by Samuel Birch, LL.D.

[329] When Laplace made meteorolites ejections from lunar volcanoes, Chladni suggested that they were masses of metallic matter, moving in irregular orbits through interplanetary, and possibly interstellar, space.

[330] This word is tortured by non-Orientalists into various ill-forms. The Arabs write it جيزة (_Jízeh_), and the Egyptians pronounce it _Gízeh_, not _Ghizeh_.

[331] A full-sized drawing appeared in vol. vii. of _Proceedings of the Phil. Soc. Glasgow_; and was repeated by Mr. Day in his book, Pl. II. he also gives Belzoni’s sickle, Pl. I.

[332] When visiting the ‘Tombs of the Soldans,’ Cairo, I found a slab of blue basalt bearing the cartouche of Khufu, used as a threshold for one of the buildings. The characters had been partly erased; but the material was too hard for the barbarians who had misused it.

[333] I have elsewhere noticed (chap. iv.) the colours of metals in the painted tombs of Thebes, and the blue (cyanus-colour) of the butcher’s steel. The history of this homely article is instructive. For hundreds of years it retained, in England and elsewhere, its original shape, an elongated cone. At last some ‘cute citizen had the idea of breaking the surface into four edges, and of hardening it with nickel. The simple improvement now fits it for sharpening everything from a needle to a razor: it thus frees us from the ‘needy knife-grinder,’ who right well deserved to be needy, as he disadorned everything he touched.

[334] _Antiquity of the Use of Metals, especially Iron, among the Egyptians_, p. 18 (London, 1868). Also _Ueber die Priorität des Eisens oder der Bronze in Ostasien_, by Dr. M. Müller (_Trans. Vienna Anthrop. Soc._ vol. ix.).

[335] I assume this date because it marks when the spring equinox (vernal colure) occurred in the Taurus-sign. The earliest of the six epochs proposed by Egyptologists is B.C. 5702 (Böckh), and the latest is B.C. 3623 (Bunsen); the mean being B.C. 4573, and the difference a matter of 2079 years (Brugsch, i. 30).

[336] The Table of Sakkarah (Memphis), found about the end of 1864 by the late Mariette Pasha, dates from Ramses the Great (thirteenth century B.C.), and makes Mibampes the first of his fifty-six ancestors. No. 2 is the new tablet of Abydos, discovered, also in 1864, by Herr Dümmichen; it enabled scholars to supply the illegible name in No. 3, the priceless Turin Papyrus, the hieratic Canon of the Ptolemies. Mirbampes, Mirbapen, or Mi-ba of the monuments is, called in Manetho ‘Miebides, son of Usarphædus’ (_Cory’s Fragments_, p. 112).

[337] Of Ramses II., who, with his father Seti, represents the Greek Sesostris, the Sesesu-Ra of the monuments. (Brugsch, _Hist._ ii. 53–62: see my chap. viii.) Prof. G. Ebers has made this Egyptian proto-Homerid the hero of his romance, _Uarda_ (i.e. Wardah, ‘the Rose’).

[338] _De Iside et Osiride._ He quotes Manetho the Priest, who wrote during the reign of the first Ptolemy, and who told unpleasant truths concerning Moses, the Hebrews, and the Exodus.

[339] The limestones of Carniola produce heaps of pisoliths, which require only smelting; and hence, probably, the early Iron Age of Noricum and its neighbourhood.

[340] They suggest the magnetic and titaniferous iron sands of Wicklow, of New Zealand, of Australia, and of a variety of sites mentioned in _To the Gold Coast for Gold_, ii. 111.

[341] The Naphtuhim of Scripture.

[342] _Percy’s Metallurgy_, p. 874, first edit.

[343] _Proc. Soc. Antiq._ second series, vol. v., June 1873. Mr. Hartland added rubbings of various Pharaohnic stones, hoping to ‘show how little the mind of civilised man has developed during 3,000 years.’ A pleasant lesson to humanity! But after all thirty centuries are a mere section of the civilisation which began in Egypt.

[344] The Corsican is simply a blacksmith’s forge. The Catalan has a heavy hammer and blowing-machine; if the _trompe_ be used, a fall of water is required for draught. The Stückofen is a Catalan extended upwards in the form of a quadrangular or circular shaft, 10–16 feet high.

[345] It is to be noted that flint implements were found all about these works: Mr. Hartland brought home from them silex arrow-heads. The late lamented Professor Palmer observed them in other parts of the Pharan peninsula, and I made a small collection in Midian. In the _Journ. of the Anthrop. Soc._ 1879, I showed, following Mr. Ouvry, Sir John Lubbock, and others, that Cairo is surrounded by ancient flint-ateliers. M. Lartet explored them in Southern Palestine; I picked them up near Bethlehem (_Unexplored Syria_, ii. 289). The Abbé Richard and others traced them at Elbireh (in the Tiberiad); between Tabor and the Lake; and, lastly, at Galgal, where Joshua circumcised. Lastly, my late friend Charles F. Tyrwhitt-Drake, when travelling with me, came upon an atelier east of Damascus. I have noticed General Pitt-Rivers’ great Egyptian discovery in chap. ii.

[346] _Hek_ or _hak_ (chief) has a suspicious resemblance to _Shaykh_ and _sos_ to _sús_, the mare, characteristically ridden by the Bedawin. In old Egyptian _sos_ is a buffalo.

[347] Movers (_Phönicier_, ii. 3), quoted by Dr. Evans (_Bronze, &c._ 5), finds bronze (copper?) 44 and iron 13 times in the Pentateuch, and he theorises upon the later introduction of the latter. But when was the Pentateuch written in its present form?

[348] Rougemont, _L’Age du Bronze_, pp. 188 _et seq._

[349] Volney, _Travels_, ii. 438.

[350] Much of it, however, was the amygdaloid greenstone, called in English ‘toad-stone,’ a corruption of the Germ. _Todstein_.

[351] _Speaker’s Commentary_, i. 831.

[352] This term seems first to have been used by Orosius (i. 2) in our fourth century.

[353] In chap. ix. I shall attempt to show that Naharayn (the dual of Nahr, a river) is also applied to Palestine in such phrases as ‘Tunipe (Daphne-town) of Naharayn.’

[354] Dr. Percy found that certain Assyrian bronzes had been cast round a support of the more tenacious metal, thus combining strength with lightness.

[355] M. F. Lenormant (‘Les Noms d’Airain et du Cuivre dans les deux Langues ... de la Chaldée et de l’Assyrie, _Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archæology_, vi. part 2) renders _parzillu_, iron; _abar_, lead; _shiparru_ (Arab. صفر, brass), bronze; _anaku_, tin; _eru_ or _erudu_, copper or bronze (Arab. ايار, copper or brass); _kashpu_, silver; and _kurashu_, gold. The learned author discovers in the cuneiforms repeated mention of the ‘ships of Mákan’ and the Kur Makannata (mountain of Makná), which he translates ‘Pays de Mákan’: finding it a great centre of copper, he is inclined to confound it with the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula. I have only to refer readers to ‘Makná’ in my three volumes on the Land of Midian.

[356] Akkad is upper, Sumir lower Babylonia.

[357] _The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World_, vol. i. p. 62. London, 1871.

[358] The first period extended from B.C. 1500 to 909. The second from B.C. 909 to 745: the most marking names being Assurnazirpal = ‘Ashur (arbiter of the gods) protects his son,’ who built the north-west palace of Nimrúd, B.C. 884; and his son Shalmanezer II. of the Black Obelisk (Brit. Museum), B.C. 850. The third period (B.C. 745–555) numbered Tiglath-Pileser II., B.C. 745–727 (a single generation before the first Olympic, B.C. 776, when the mythic age of Greece emerges into the historical); Sennacherib (705–681); Esarhaddon (680–668), Assur-bani-pal (668–640); Nebuchadnezzar in 604–561, a contemporary of Solon (B.C. 594); Nergalsharuzur (B.C. 557); and the last Nabonidus (B.C. 555). Herodotus (B.C. 450) wrote about a century after the end of the third period, Ctesias in B.C. 395, and Berosus in B.C. 280. We have, it is clear, absolutely no historic proof that ‘the patriarchal system of communities first locally developed itself at the mouth of the Euphrates Valley,’ or began in any part of the great Mesopotamian plain.

[359] Rev. B. H. Cooper (_loc. cit._) would derive ‘Ida’ from the Semitic יר (_yad_, hand), and make the Daktyls, or fingers, its peaks.

[360] I shall reserve for chap. xi. notices of iron by the classic and sacred poets of Greece.

[361] _Troy and its Remains_, p. 362; the analysis by M. Damour of Lyons.

[362] The theory of Stephani, Schulze, and others concerning the Byzantine date and Herulian origin of the Mycenæan graves, has been treated in England with some respect by Mr. A. S. Murray and Mr. Perry.

[363] According to Pausanias, Alyattes, the Lydian king (ob. B.C. 570), dedicated to his god, amongst other offerings, an inlaid iron saucer.

[364] Neither from this nor from any other passage can we ascertain whether the Chalybes tribe gave its name to _chalybs_ (steel), or whether the material worked named the workmen.

[365] Colonel Yule (_M. Polo_, ii. 96) remarks that in the Middle Ages steel was regarded as a distinct natural species made of another ore, and relates how a native to whom an English officer had explained the process of tempering replied, ‘What, would you have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will come out a horse?’

[366] _Acies_ is properly the edge, that is, the steeled or cutting part of an instrument, which may be case-hardened. Hence the later words _aciare_, to steel, and _aciarium_, sharpening steel; hence, too, the neo-Latin _acier_, _acciaio_, &c.

[367] See chap. xiii. Dr. Evans (_Bronze_, 275) says, ‘How far their process of burying iron until part of it had rusted away would, in the case of charcoal iron, leave the remaining portion more of the nature of steel, I am unable to say.’ It will appear that this burying is often spoken of; I have never seen it practised.

[368] Regulus (the ‘little king’) is the residue of pure metal purged of its dross; the old alchemists so entitled it because they ever expected to find the great king—Gold.

[369] At the Anthropological Congress of Austrian Salzburg (Aug. 1881) the tools attributed to the ‘Keltic’ miners were almost the same as those which I had seen near the Wrekin.

[370] Ingénieur des Mines: ‘Gisements métallifères du District de Carthagène (Espagne),’ Liège, 1875; a contribution to the _Proc. Geolog. Soc. Belgium_; and the result of extensive geological and mineralogical observation. The coloured map shows the strata-sequence (actual and in ideal order) to be tertiary limestone, iron-ore (carbonated, manganiferous, or plumbiferous); schistes; blende; schistes; silicated iron and schistes.

[371] _Lectures on the Science of Language_, pp. 254–55, vol. ii., edit. 1873.

[372] _Chips from a German Workshop_ (set up in England), p. 47, vol. ii., edit. 1868.

[373] Mr. Day (_General Table of Terms_, given at end of this chapter) quotes as ‘oldest Sanskrit’ two names of iron, आर (_ár_ or _ára_), meaning the planet Mars (_Ares_) or Saturn; iron (oxide of iron, ironstone?), brass (copper?); and अयस्, _áyas_ (whence _ayaskant_, a loadstone, and _ayaskár_, a smith), a word already noticed in connection with _æs_. But Mr. Day adds to his ‘oldest Sanskrit’ ‘probably B.C. 1500’; and here again we recognise the master-touch of the subtle race—

‘for profound
And solid lying much renowned.’

[374] Report of Gen. A. Cunningham (Archæolog. Survey, 1861–62). It speaks highly for Anglo-Indian _vis inertiæ_ and incuriousness when we are told that the ‘whole length of the pillar is unknown,’ and when every observer’s account of it differs in essentials.

[375] The _savant_ who first translated the inscription _Indian Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 319. The dates vary between the tenth century B.C. and A.D. 1052 (!).

[376] The Persian _haft-júsh_ (seven boilings), referred to by Ibn Batutah in Colonel Yule’s letter, p. 145 (Day, p. 153).

[377] Quoted by Mr. Day (p. 24) from the _United States Railroad and Mining Register_.

[378] Mr. Day (quoting Fergusson’s _Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan_, London, 1848) cautions his readers that ‘Mr. Fergusson’s dates are not to be relied on, however important his writings unquestionably are in other respects’ (p. 168). Here again we see the misleading influence of the Sanskritists, who have allowed themselves to be cozened by the ‘mild Hindu.’ Mr. Day inclines (p. 151) to the tenth century B.C. (!), when the peoples of India were, we have reason to believe, the merest savages.

[379] The modern Hindus call steel _Paldah_, from the Persian _Pulád_, the Arab. _Fulád_. They apply to Spanish steel the terms _Ispát_, _Sukhela_ and _Tolad_. Their favourite trial of Sword-metal is with a bar of soft gold, which should leave a streak.

[380] Colonel Yule does not consider the word genuine, and with reason, as the Indo-Phœnician (‘Safá’) alphabet has no _w_ and no _z_. The word first appears in ‘Experiments and Observations to investigate the Nature of a Kind of Steel manufactured at Bombay, and there called _Wootz_,’ ... by G. Pearson, M.D. (paper read before the Royal Soc., June 11, 1795). He notes that ‘Dr. Scott of Bombay, in a letter to the President, acquainted him that he had sent over “specimens of a substance known by the name of wootz, which is considered to be a kind of steel, and is in high esteem among the Indians”’ (p. 322). In Wilkinson’s _Engines of War_ (1841) we read (pp. 203–206), ‘The cakes of steel are called _wootz_.’

Dr. E. Balfour states that _uchhá_ and _níchhá_ (in Hindustani ‘high’ and ‘low’) are used in the Canarese provinces to denote superior and inferior descriptions of articles, and that _Wootz_ may be a corruption of the former. Colonel Yule and his coadjutor in the _Glossary of Indian Terms_, the late lamented Dr. Burnell, hold that it originated in some clerical error or misreading, perhaps from _wook_ representing the Canarese _ukku_ = steel.

[381]

C. {combined 1·333
{uncombined 0·312
Si. 0·045
S. 0·181
As. 0·037
Fe. (by difference) 98·092
———————
100·000

Phillips, _Metallurgy_, p. 317. Faraday found in Wootz 0·0128–0·0695 per cent. of aluminium, and attributed the ‘damask’ of the blades to its presence. Karsten, after three experiments, and Mr. T. H. Henry, failed to detect it, and suggested that it may have been derived from intermingled slag containing silicate of alumina (Percy, _Iron, &c._ pp. 183–84).

[382] _Archiv. Port. Oriental._ fascic. iii. p. 318.

[383] M. Keller (_Pres. Soc. Ant. Switz._) notes that crudely formed lumps and quadrangular blocks of malleable iron, double pyramids weighing 10–16 lbs., have been found in prehistoric sites. They were probably produced in primitive Catalans. Pieces of iron slag worked by the Kelts were discovered in 1862 on the Cheviot Hills.

[384] The cupel (of old copel) is the French _coupelle_, little coupe. The muffle is a metal cupel.

[385] This is the process of working Wootz given by Mr. Heath; others pack the metal with finely-chopped stalks of asclepias as well as cassia. Mr. Mallet has described the Indian manufacture of large iron masses in _The Engineer_, vol. xxxiii. pp. 19, 20. Beckmann (_loc. cit. sub v._ ‘Steel’) notices the bloomeries or furnaces. The _Penny Cyclopædia_ and Ure’s _Dict. of Chemistry_ (the latter the best), London, Longmans, 1839, may also be consulted. Dr. Percy gives a long account (pp. 254–66) of iron-smelting in India from Mr. Howard Blackwell. He notes three kinds of furnaces:—

1. Rude, like chimney-pots; used by the hill-tribes of Western
India, the Deccan, and the Carnatic.
2. Simple Catalan forge } Central India and the
3. Early form of Stückofen } N.W. Provinces.

The anvil is a square iron without beak. Three kinds of Indian bellows are noticed (pp. 255–56). The people, who love _stare super antiquas vias_, ignore the hot blast: this contrivance causes a more active combustion, an ‘ultimate fact’ as yet unexplained.

[386] Report of 1852.

[387] The dialect is much more ancient than we usually suppose: it existed long before Akbar the Great and his ‘Urdú zabán’ (camp language), for we find that the poet Chand wrote in it during the twelfth century.

[388] As will appear in Part II. there are many processes for making the Damascus; the exact markings, however, are best produced by that noticed above.

[389] Pp. 270–3, from the descriptions of Mr. W. T. Blanford, of the Geol. Survey of India.

[390] Pp. 273–5; borrowed from _Travels in Borneo_, by Dr. C. A. L. M. Schauer during 1843–47, p. 109.

[391] The Swords of the Borneo Dyaks and the islanders of Timor and Rotti are photographed by the Curator of the Christy Collection.

[392] Mr. Day quotes, book i., the Tribute of Yu, Legge’s _Chinese Classics_, vol. iii. part i. p. 121 (Trübner, London, 1865).

[393] The ‘Celestial Empire,’ according to her annals, began B.C. 100,000–80,000; the date being probably astronomical, or rather astrological, founded, like the four Hindu æras, upon retrograde calculations. The first cycle of 60 years is attributed to the Emperor Hwang-tí, and its initiation to the 61st year of his reign, in B.C. 2637 (the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt?). The first historical dates are given in B.C. 651, a century after the foundation of Rome: these figures afford a curious contrast between pretensions and proof. But as Englishmen after long residence ‘grow black’ in Africa, and have become semi-Hinduised in India, so in China they have allowed themselves to be imposed upon by the ‘magna fabulositas,’ the marvellous self-sufficiency of astute semi-barbarians. ‘China is a sea that salts all the rivers which flow into it.’ Yet I am curious to ascertain by actual travel if China ever possessed a centre of civilisation independent of what she received from the West; in other words, non-Egyptian.

[394] Of the 214 keys or radicals. The first three arithmetical figures are lines disposed horizontally, while the Egyptians wrote them vertically. In his Terminal Table (affixed to this chapter) Mr. Day assigns Chinese to the ‘Sporadic or Allophyllian family.’ I believe it to be the oldest and, as far as we know, the original form of Turanian speech, a kind of _tertium quid_ deduced from the so-called ‘Aryan’ and ‘Semitic’ elements of Egyptian.

[395] _Trans. Bib. Archæol._ 1879. Sayce’s _Grammar_ gives 522 Assyrian characters.

[396] The lump of iron worked into a mass more or less rectangular is called a bloom, from the Saxon _bloma_, metal in mass (Bosworth): _Bloma ferri_ occurs in the Domesday Book. Hence ancient furnaces were called _bloomeries_; the Elizabethan spelling is a _bloomary_. The blooms were beaten out to bars.

[397] In Persia I was told that this was one of the ‘secrets’ of making the finest Khorasáni blades.

[398] It followed the Mongols and preceded the Manchow Tartars, who still reign.

[399] This process of converting iron to steel is first described in ‘_Alchemiæ Gebri_ (El-Gabr), _Arabis philosophi solertissimi, Libri, &c._, Joan. Petreius Nurembergen̄. denuo Bernæ excudi faciebat. anno 1545.’ The Arab, known to Albertus Magnus, flourished in the eighth to the ninth century. According to Beckmann, he noticed the ore _cineritii_ (cupellation) _et cementi_ (cementation) _tolerans_. The mixture is usually of sal ammoniac, borax, alum, and fine salt: the many varieties are described by Percy, Ure, and a host of others. Compare also Ure’s account of cast-steel and of shear-steel, the latter so called because cloth-shears were forged of it.

[400] At least it would so appear from the following passage (p. 176): ‘When we examine the etymology of ‘pole,’ or ‘pillar,’ thus—Saxon, _pol_ or _pal_; German, _Pfahl_; Danish, _paal_ or _pol_; Swedish, _pale_; Welsh _pawl_—we arrive at the Latin _palus_, which, besides signifying a pole or stake, is also the φαλλός of the Greeks, _Mahadeva_ (?) or _Linga_ (?) of the Hindoos, _Bel_ or _Baal_ (?) of the Chaldeans, _Yakhveh_ (?) of the Canaanites, _Ti-mohr_ of the ancient Irish, and _Teih-mo_ of the Chinese,’ &c.

[401] _Notes from Mr. Henderson’s Diary during a Ramble through Shansi, in March 1874_, published by Mr. Day (Appendix D, p. 251). Colonel Yule (_Marco Polo_, ii. 429), alluding to these enormous deposits of coal and metal, says: ‘Baron Richtofen, in the paper which we quote from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of the world’s wealth and power, to which such facts, combined with other characteristics of China, point as probable; a revolution so vast that its contemplation seems like that of a planetary catastrophe.’

[402] _Les Mondes_, tome xxvi., Dec. 1871.

[403] _Polynesian Researches_ (Rev. William Ellis).

[404] _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_, p. 167.

[405] Unless greatly mistaken, I have seen iron tools made of hæmatite near the old Gongo Socco gold-mines of Minas Geraes, in the Brazil. Worked hæmatite is also mentioned in Cyprus by General Palma (di Cesnola). See chap. ix.

[406] From _Nature_ (Sept. 30, 1875); quoted by Mr. Day (pp. 217–19).

[407] _Flint Chips_, by Edmund T. Stevens, p. 553 (London: Bell & Daldy, 1870).

[408] The ‘plummet’ is figured (No. cxxxii.) in the _American Naturalist_ (vol. vi. p. 643).

[409] The people of Camarones River, Bight of Biafra, work up old cask and bale hoops into very creditable edge-tools and weapons, hoes, knives, and Swords (Rev. G. Grenfell, _Proc. Roy. Geolog. Soc._ Oct. 1882).

[410] The origin of the modern process is still debated. Agricola (_nat._ 1494, _ob._ 1555) notices both malleable and cast iron. Dr. Percy (p. 578) quotes from Mr. M. A. Lower (_Contributions to Literature, &c._ 1854) that Burwash Church, Sussex, contains a cast-iron slab of the fourteenth century with ornamental cross and inscription in relief. The same authority declares that iron cannon were first cast at Buxted (Buckstead in Sussex) by Philip Hoge or Hogge in 1543 (35 Henry VIII.); and that his successor, Thomas Johnson, made ordnance pieces for the Duke of Cumberland weighing 6,000 lbs.

[411] Dr. Percy (pp. 764 _et seq._) notices the three processes of making steel (iron containing carbon in certain proportions): 1. The addition of carbon to malleable iron; 2. The partial decarburisation of cast iron; and 3. The addition of malleable iron to cast iron.

[412] I borrow from O Muata Cazembe (Kazembe, the King) a rude sketch (p. 38) of one of the better kinds of iron-smelting furnaces used by the extensive Maráve race dwelling north of the Zambeze (River of Fish), which Europeans persist in miswriting _Zambesi_. The bellows, it will be remarked, are almost of European shape; but this peculiarity may be attributed to the artist.

[413] _Travels_, pp. 275–77 (London, 1749).

[414] Colonel A. Lane Fox (_Prim. Warfare_, i. 38) believes that the ‘Fans and Kafirs (Caffres) are totally different races.’ But both speak dialects of the same tongue, the great South African language. Modern African travellers have traced community of customs from north to south, and from east to west, suggesting extensive intercourse, in former days, throughout the length and breadth of the Dark Continent.

[415] _Across Africa_, chap. xix., July 1874 (Daldy, Isbister & Co., London, 1877).

[416] _Missionary Travels_, p. 402 (London, 1857).

[417] _Anthrop. Coll._ pp. 128–134. ‘Specimens illustrating the geographical distribution of corrugated iron blades, or blades with an ogee section, double skin bellows, and iron work.’ As regards the ogee section, the author should have compared it with the arrow-heads whose plane sides are ‘bellied on a twist’ to cause rotation or rifling.

[418] Diogenes Laertius tells us of Anacharsis only that he ‘wrote also about war.’

[419] As all savage races show, the original anchor was a stone first bound round like a celt, and then pierced for a rope: hence the ‘fugitive stone’ used by the Argonauts as an anchor (Pliny, xxxvii. 24). In the spring of 1880 eight stone anchors of modern shape were found in Piræus harbour, and were sent to the Nautical School at Athens.

[420] Wilkinson, i. 174. Mr. Day, pp. 86, 87.

[421] Hence, too, we see our ‘bellows’ = ‘bellies.’

[422] This word is curiously corrupted in Europe. It is formed upon the model of Dár-Wadái, &c.; and means the abode, region, home (_Dár_) of the For tribe. My lamented friend General Purdy (Pasha) formerly of the United Slates Army, admirably surveyed it, and died at Cairo in 1881.

[423] _Vulgo_ Kattywár; described in 1842 by Captain (the late Sir G. Le Grand) Jacob in his _Report on Guzerat_ (Gujarát).

[424] The sticks correspond with the strings on the bellows of the Egyptian monuments.

[425] _Iron_, Jan. 8, 1876.

[426] I observe that M. Terrien de la Couperie has lately derived the oldest civilisation of China from Chaldæo-Babylonia of the Akkadian Ages, B.C. 2400–2300.

[427] Major Jähns (p. 416) would derive _Schwert_ (= _das Sausende_, _Schwirrende_, i.e. whizzing) from the Sansk. _svar_, noise; and considers it originally a missile pure and simple. He quotes Isidore, who explains _rhomphæa_ by _wafan_; _Schwert_ and _framea_ = _asta vel gladius_; _ensis_ = _hevas_, _hevassa_; _mucro_ = _swert_, _gladius_ = _wafan_; _culter_ = _wafansahs_, _sahse_. In the hebraising days _Sword_ was derived from Sharat, to scratch, and _Sabre_ from Shabar, to shiver.

[428] Of the Flamberge and the ‘flamboyant,’ or wavy blade, more hereafter.

[429] Muratori (_Antiq._ ii. 487) notes, ‘_Spatam sive spontonem_, and _sponto_, _spunto_, i.e. _pugio_’ (Adelung). Of _spatha_ more to come.

[430] Or ‘_die Schneide_,’ the older forms being _ekke_, _egge_; while ‘_valz_’ was the middle section of the two-handed Sword.

[431] ‘Chape,’ derived from _capa_, and a congener of ‘cap’ and ‘cape,’ is differently used by authors. Some apply it to the mouthpiece or ring at the top of the sheath; others to the metal crampet, bouterolle, or ferule at the scabbard-tip, and others to the guard-plate. In Durfey (_The Marriage-Hater Matched_) we find ‘the hilt, the knot, the scabbard, the _chape_, the belt, and the buckles’ (of a Sword). Skinner explains it as _vaginæ mucro ferreus_. Mr. Fairholt defines _chape_ to be the guard-plate or cross-bar at the junction of grip and hilt. Shakespeare, who knew the Sword, speaks of the ‘_chape_ of his dagger’ (_All’s Well &c._ iv. 3) and ‘an old rusty Sword with a broken hilt and _chapelesse_’ (_Taming of the Shrew_, iii. 2). Commentators mostly explain this by ‘without a catch to hold it.’ Dr. Evans (_Bronze, &c._ chap. viii.) has exhaustively described the bronze chapes (bouterolles) in the British Islands.

[432] A congener of our ‘quill,’ from the Lat. _caulis_, a stalk. Littré is not satisfactory: ‘Quillon (_ki-llon_, ll mouillées), s.m. Partie de la monture du sabre ou de l’épée, située du côté opposé aux branches, et dont l’extrémité est arrondie. Dérivé de quille’ (cone) ‘par assimilation de forme’ (in fact, incrementative of) ‘quille. Etym. Génev. _quille_; de l’anc. haut-allem. _Kegil_; allem. _Kegel_, objet allongé en forme conique, _quille_.’ Burn translates _quillon_ ‘cross-bar of the hilt of an infantry or light-cavalry Sword.’

[433] This must not be written, as by some English authors, _pas d’ane_. ‘_Pas d’âne_, instrument avec lequel on maintient ouverte la bouche du cheval pour l’examiner.’ Littré has: ‘_Pas d’âne_, nom donné, dans les épées du xvi^{ème} siècle, à des pièces de la garde qui sont en forme d’anneau, et qui vont des quillons à la lame. “Le Seigneur le prit et mit un pied sur la lame ... alors Collinet s’écria: Venez voir, messieurs, le grand miracle que l’on fait à mon épée; je l’ai apportée ici avec une simple poignée et sans garde défensive, et voilà maintenant que l’on y met le plus beau pas d’âne du monde.”’ _Francion_, vi. p. 237: ‘Pas d’âne, nom vulgaire du tussilage, à cause de la feuille.’

[434] The Scottish basket-hilt, however, requires improvement, as it does not allow free play to hand or wrist.

[435] The word is originally the Persian _Shamshír_ (شمشير); but as the Greeks have no _sh_ sound, it made its way into Europe curiously disguised. Jean Chartier (temp. Charles VII.) says, ‘_Sauveterres ou cimeterres qui sont manière d’espée à la Turque_.’ _Sauveterre_ became in Italian _salvaterra_; and in England _scymitar_ was further degraded to _semitarge_. I have no objection to _scimitar_, but _scymitar_ is the older form.

[436] See note at the end of this chapter.

[437] As usual, the diagram is an exaggeration. It directs the thrusting weapon too low, at the antagonist’s breast, not his eye; nor is it necessary to raise the hand so high in order to deliver the cut.

[438] Quoted from Mr. John Latham by Colonel A. Lane Fox, _Anthrop. Coll._ p. 171. Concerning the drawing cut and its reverse, the thrusting cut, I shall have more to say when treating of the ‘Damascus’ blade in Part II.

[439] The section of the modern weapon shows that the _baïonnette Gras_ is fit only for the thrust; and, as it stops its own cut, it is useless for the menial and servile offices in which the Yataghan-bayonet, like the old _coupe-choux_ Sword, did yeoman’s service. I can see no improvement upon the old-fashioned triangular bayonet, which amongst us has been superseded by the short Enfield Sword-bayonet. To the latter I should prefer even the bowie-knife bayonet, of which the Washington Arsenal was once full, and which has been used even lately in the United States. None but practical soldiers realise the fact that the bayonet is meant to be a bayonet, not a Sword, nor a dagger, nor a chopper, nor a saw.

[440] Mr. Wareing Faulder (Exhibition of Industrial Art, Manchester, June and July, 1881, _Catalogue_, p. 24) suggests that the Colichemarde ‘fell into disuse probably in consequence of its costliness, combined with its inelegant appearance when sheathed.’

[441] Captain George Chapman, in his _Foil Practice, &c._, a book which will appear in the ‘Bibliography’ (Part III.), rightly distinguishes between the triangular small-Sword, used only for thrusting, and the bi-convex cut-and-thrust ‘rapier,’ a term applied by the Germans to the _Schläger_, which has no point. In England most people use ‘small-Sword’ only in opposition to ‘broadsword’; but, as the Art of Fencing may be considered a general foundation for swordsmanship, all men-at-arms should understand and preserve the difference. The writer, however, observes (Notes, pp. 4, 5), that, among the various actions which may conveniently be executed with the triangular ‘Biscayan,’ there are many which cannot be so easily managed with a flat blade, or with the usual weapon of modern combat, however light and handy. Hence ‘fencers among military men should be cautioned against _indiscriminately_ attempting with the Sword performances usually taught in lessons with the foil.’

[442] It was also a proper name applied to the Paladin Renaud’s Sword. The flamberge of the seventeenth century became a rapier-blade, and no longer ‘flamboyant,’ and the difference is in the hilt, and especially the guards. The latter were shallower and simpler than the rapier form, and were more easily changed from hand to hand, as was the practice of early fencers.

[443] There is another Dáo in the Eastern regions, a large, square, double-edged blade, with a handle attached to the centre. The Dah of Burma is originally the same weapon as the Nágá Dáo.

[444] In the _Bulletin de l’Institut Egyptien_ (deuxième série, No. 1, année 1880) there is an admirable paper on Eastern heraldry, ‘Le blason chez les Princes musulmans,’ by E. T. Rogers Bey. He proves that a heraldic scutcheon is known to the Arabs as _rank_, plur. _runúk_, and that the word is the Persian _rang_, colour, from which he would derive our (man of) ‘rank,’ a word hitherto unsatisfactorily explained. As regards the tints, ‘azure’ is evidently the Persian _lájawardi_; and ‘gules’ is better derived from _gul_, a rose, than from Fr. _gueules_ (jaw), which is L. Lat. _gula_, reddened skin. These three words suggest that for the origin of heraldry in its present form we must go back to Persia. Of the Sword in European heraldry I shall have more to say in Part II.

[445] Strange to say, these Sword-names are carefully omitted from Liddell and Scott, 1869.

[446] The information was kindly forwarded to me by Captain F. M. Hunter, Assistant Political Resident, Aden. Along the blade runs the inscription, which will be quoted in Part II., and the characters appear modern. My informant thinks that this Chelidonian does not represent the original Zú’l-Fikár, which was two-edged.

[447] This trophy hangs against the staircase wall of the fine armoury belonging to the Museo del Arsenale (Naval Arsenal), Venice. Here, however, it has become a complicated affair with Koranic inscription (ch. xl. vol. i.); open-jawed dragons’ heads at the hilt, and below the handle a rosette with various complications of ‘Yá’ (Allah!).

[448] It is figured in the illustrations following the _Antiquities of Orissa_, by Rajendra Lala Mitra.

[449] Capt. Cameron and I exhibited a specimen, made for us by good King Blay of Attábo, at a special meeting of the Anthropological Institute of London.

[450] The Austrian geographer, Dr. Josef Chavanne, estimates the mean altitude of Africa at 2,170 feet (round numbers), or more than double that of Europe (971 feet, M. G. Leipoldt).

[451] He makes his Ethiopians emigrate from India to Egypt—but where? when? how? The ‘Asiatic Æthiopians’ of Herodotus lie between the Germanii (Persian _Kerman_) and the Indus (iii. 93, &c.). The bas-reliefs of Susiana show negroid types, and Texier found the Lamlam tribe in the marshes round the head of the Persian Gulf to resemble the Bisharin of Upper Egypt. Was _the_ Buddha one of these Cushite Ethiopians?

[452] _Monumental History, &c._