Sword

Quite different from the European models is the crescent-shaped Asiatic sabre, commonly called scimitar. We are not acquainted with any distinct evidence as to the origin of this in time or place. The fame of the Damascus manufacture of sword-blades is of great antiquity, as is also that of Khurasan. Whoever first made these blades had conceived a very definite idea—that of gaining a maximum of cutting power regardless of loss in other qualities— and executed it in a manner not to be improved upon. The action of the curved edge in delivering a blow is to present an oblique and therefore highly acute-angled section of the blade to the object struck, so that in effect the cut is given with a finer edge than could safely be put on the blade in its direct transverse section. In a well-made sabre the setting of the blade with regard to the handle ("leading forward") is likewise ordered with a view to this result. And the cutting power of a weapon so shaped and mounted is un doubtedly very great. But the use of the point is abandoned, and the capacities of defensive use (to which Orientals pay little or no attention) much diminished. These drawbacks have caused the scimitar type, after being in fashion for European light cavalry during the period of Napoleon's wars and somewhat longer, to be discarded in our own time. But, as long as Easterns adhere to their rigid grasp of a small handle and sweeping cut delivered from the shoulder, the Persian scimitar or Indian talwar will remain the natural weapon of the Eastern horseman. Indian and Persian swords are often richly adorned ; but their true beauty is in the texture of the steel itself, the "damascening" or "watering" which distinguishes a superior from a common specimen.

There are special Asiatic varieties of curved blades of which the origin is more or less uncertain. Among these the most remarkable is perhaps the yataghan, a weapon pretty much coextensive with the Mohammedan world, though it is reported to be not common in Persia. It was imported from Africa, through a French imita tion, as the model of the sword-bayonets which were common for about a generation in European armies. A compact and formidable hand weapon was thus turned into a clumsy and top-heavy pike. The double curve of the yataghan is substantially identical with that of the Gurkha knife (kukri), though the latter is so much broader as to be more like a woodman's than a soldier's instru ment. It is doubtful, however, whether there is any historical con nection. Similar needs are often capable of giving rise to similar inventions without imitation or communication. There are yet other varieties which have acquired a strong individuality. Such are the swords of Japan, which are the highly perfected working out of a general Indo-Chinese type ; they are powerful weapons and often beautifully made, but a European swordsman would find them ill-balanced, and the Japanese style of sword-play, being two-handed, has little to teach us.

Other sorts of weapons, again, are so peculiar in form or his torical derivation, or both, as to refuse to be referred to any of the normal divisions. The long straight gauntlet-hilted sword (patd) found both among the Mahrattas in the south of India and among the Sikhs and Rajputs in the north, is an elongated form of the broad-bladed dagger with a cross-bar handle (katdr), as shown by a transitional form, much resembling in its shape and the size of blade the mediaeval English anlace and furnished with a guard for the back of the hand. When once the combina

tion of a long blade with the gauntlet hilt was arrived at, any straight blade might be so mounted; and many appear on exami nation to be of European workmanship—German, Spanish or Italian. There are various other Oriental arms, notably in the Malay group, as to which it is not easy to say whether they are properly swords or not. The Malay "parang latok" is a kind of elongated chopper sharpened by being bevelled off to an edge on one side, and thus capable of cutting only in one direction. The an lace incidentally mentioned above seems to be merely an over grown dagger ; the name occurs only in English and Welsh ; in which language first, or whence the name or thing came, is unknown.

Later European Developments.

In the course of the i 6th century the straight two-edged sword of all work was lengthened, narrowed, and more finely pointed, till it became the Italian and Spanish rapier, a weapon still furnished with cutting edges, but used chiefly for thrusting. We cannot say how far this transition was influenced by the estoc or Panzerstecher, a late mediaeval thrusting weapon carried by horsemen rather as an auxiliary lance than as a sword. The Roman preference for the point was redis covered under new conditions, and fencing became an art. Its progress was from pedantic complication to lucidity and simplicity and the fashion of the weapon was simplified also. Early in the i8th century, the use of the edge having been finally abandoned in rapier-play, the two-edged blade was supplanted by the bayonet-shaped French duelling sword, on which no improvement has since been made except in giving it a still simpler guard. The name of rapier was often but wrongly given to this by Eng lish writers. About the same time, or a little earlier, the pri macy of the art passed from Italy to France. There is still a distinct Italian school, but the rest of the world learns from French masters. It is unneces sary here to consider the history of fencing (q.v.).

Meanwhile a stouter and broader pattern, with sundry mi nor varieties, continued in use for military purposes, and gradu ally the single-edged form or broadsword prevailed. The well known name of Ferrara, pecu liarly associated with Scottish blades, appears to have originally belonged to a Venetian maker, or family of makers, towards the end of the 16th century. The Spanish blades made at Toledo had by that time acquired a renown- which still continues. Somewhat later Oriental examples, imported probably by way of Hungary, induced the curvature found in most recent military sabres, which, however, is such as not to interfere with the effective use of the point. An eccentric specialized variety of the sabre is the narrow and flexible "Schlager" with which German students used to fight their duels, under highly conventional rules almost identical with those of the old English "back-swording" practised within living memory, in which, however, the swords were represented by sticks.