The bow of the ancient Greeks and Romans was very short, that of the Tartars is still so; and a tribe of diminutive people in the southern parts of Africa use one little more than two feet long. The English long bow was six feet in length, and that of the South American savages is scarcely shorter. Those modern nations whose cavalry are armed with the bow, use it short for convenience; though it is certain that the force and range of the arrow are aug mented by the length of the bow.
The quality of the bow-string is of much conse quence, and we are told that battles have been lost or gained by its imperfections. Probably the si news of animals, or thongs cut from their hides, were first employed, as catgut is now by the east ern nations. But instead of forming a thick and strong cord of a single piece, a number of small fila ments, bound together in different places, constitute the string. The long hair of animals, and even that of women, was anciently converted to bow-strings, whence a temple was erected at Rome, dedicated to Venus the Bald. Thus Julius Capitolinus observes.
Pretereundunz ne illud quidem est, quod raida fide .4quileienses contra Maximinum pro sencuu fuerunt, rtr fanes de capillis nudierum facerent quum deessent nervi ad sagittas cmittendas, quod aliquando Roma dicitur factum. Inds in honorem matronarum tem plum Veneri Calyx senatus dicavit. Analogous facts are related by Cmsar and Dio. The substance most approved of by the moderns for bowstrings is hemp; for though catgut be tough and strong, it is too lia ble to be affected by the temperature of the weather.
The arrow has invariably been made of light reeds, or snlits of board pointed with harder wood, bone, or metal, according to the facility with which these substances could be procured by the bowmen ; or barbed in certain countries, so as to inflict a more dangerous wound. The arrow of the ancient Eng lish archers, as at the battle of Agincourt, was a full yard in length; that of some modern South Ame ricans, exceeds five feet. The whistling arrow, which produces a sound, from an enlarged hollow head con taining holes, is said to be used by the Chinese for making signals : and we read of an entertainment given to Henry VIII. in 1515, where " the arrows whistled be craft of their head, so that the noise was strange, and great, and much pleased the king and queen, and all the company." buch are the bow and arrow in their simple state. Their power and effect depend on their peculiar con struction, and the skill of the archer combined. But in the use of this instrument, the skill of the moderns seems to have declined on the European continent, and in Britain. The range of an ar row's flight is here under 200 yards; but there was lately a Turkish ambassador in London, who, id displaying his strength, shot to the distance of 480 yards ; and a recent traveller mentions a ran dom shot by Hassan Aga, a Turkish govei nor of Athens, which, on measurement, he found to be 584 yards. In accounts of the ancient English bow men, we read of arrows reaching a mile at three flights. Much depends on early education and con tinued practice: and it has always been a received opinion, that in youth alone the rudiments of archery can be learned.
The bow and arrow are extensively used at the pre sent day,and this weapon anciently held a distinguished place in warlike operations. But now the only civili zed nation having numerous and regular troops armed with the bow, are the Chinese. In all others it is gra
dually giving place to fire-arms, by which it will soon be totally supplanted : In China, however, match-locks only, and not the modern improvements in gunnery, arc known; and the rigid adherence of the people to the customs of their ancestors will long preserve the bow as a warlike weapon. The power of the bow is estimated by weight : thus,in describing one as a sixty or seventy pound bow, it is meant that the power re quired in bending it would raise sixty or seventy pounds. The weakest bows used in the army are of fifty pounds : the common weight is eighty or an hundred, and some even go higher. A strong attachment prevailed for the English long-bow, from the service of which it. had proved in battle ; and it was not totally eradi cated in Britain until the seventeenth century.
To render the effect of this weapon still more deadly, the point of the arrow has been embued with poison, so deleterious in its nature as to occasion in stant death. This is not a new invention ; for, inde pendent of what is observed by others of the ancients, Justin the historian mentions poisoned arrows as known in the time of Alexander the Great. Cum venisset ad urbem ?mbigeri regis, opfiidani invictum ferro audi entes, sagittas veneno armant, atque ita gemino mor tis hostem a Inuris summoventes plurimos inter ficiunt. (Lib. xii. cap. 10 ) Pliny the naturalist specifies a certain tree, from which the Gauls prepared a poison for the arrows with which they shot stags. The art is still preserved among the South Ameri cans, who blow arrows from a tube, as well as shoot them from a bow. A credible author relates an in stance of an Englishman having killed a native in a fit of passion at Macassar. Though the king par doned his offence, the other Europeans resident there, apprehensive that they might themselves afterwards become the objects of vengeance, insisted that he should suffer that punishment which the laws of the country decreed. The king assented, but, willing to save the culprit from unnecessary pain, he himself re solved to be the executioner with a poisoned arrow, and desired the culprit to name the spot to which it should be directed. He chose the great toe of the right foot, which the king struck with an arrow blown from a tube with wonderful precision and dexterity. Though two European physicians instantly exercised all their skill, and performed an amputation far above the wound, the man died in their hands. Experiments with poisoned arrows by other intelligent Europeans prove that they occasion instant death, and that a South American preparation, with which they were imbued, operates with greater speed and certainty than the most deadly poison. Arrows charged with combustible substances, for setting fire to houses and shipping, were extremely common of old ; and have been used by the nations of India in repressing the encroachments of the British during last century. (c) BOW, C.:Ross. There is only one way of altering the bow from its original simplicity, which is by combining it with a stock. It is then bent by means of a lever, and the arrow is discharged along a groove. The Chinese have a kind of cross-bow, invented, as they affirm, about the commencement of the Chris tian era, which can discharge ten arrows at once. This, so far as we can understand, is accomplished from the arrows lying in parallel grooves above each other.