“But, if you look closely at the weapons themselves, they rather resemble those which we are accustomed to wonder at in missionary museums,—the arms of some ingenious but barbarous people from the South Sea Islands,—than such as are used in civilised warfare. Here are long lances, made like scythe-blades, set on a staff, with a hook on the tip, as if to capture the fleeing foe, and bring him within reach of the blade. Among them are others of similar shape, but with the edge cut into delicate slanting notches, which run along the sides of the blade like those on the edge of our reaping-hooks.
“These are chiefly the weapons of the lower bundle; those of the upper are still more imposing. The outermost are short curved clubs, armed with a row of shark’s teeth to make them more fatal; these surround a cluster of spears, the long heads of which are furnished with a double row of the same appendages, and lengthened scimitars, the curved edges of which are cut into teeth like a saw.
“Though a stranger might think I had drawn copiously on my fancy for this description, I am sure, with your eye upon what is on the stage of the microscope at this moment, you will acknowledge that the resemblances are not at all forced or unnatural. To add to the effect, imagine that all these weapons are forged out of the clearest glass instead of steel; that the larger bundles may contain about fifty, and the smaller half as many each; that there are four bundles upon every segment, and that the body is composed of twenty-five such segments, and you will have a tolerable idea of the garniture and armature of this little worm, which grubs about in the mud at low-water mark.”
Somewhere between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a sort of anomalous weapon was in use, namely, a dagger, with a number of very deep and bold barbs. It was not, however, employed for offence, but for defence, and was used in the “rapier and dagger” mode of fighting, when the dagger, which was held in the left hand, was employed to parry the thrusts of the rapier, which was held in the right. From the mode of holding it, the weapon was called “Main Gauche.”
Sometimes the blade was quite plain, and, indeed, an ordinary dagger answered the purpose. But in most cases the Main Gauche was made for this special purpose, and was furnished either with strong diverging projections, or with a series of deep notches, so that the sword of the enemy might be caught in them and broken. In consequence of this use these notched or guarded weapons were also called by the name of Brise-épée, or Sword-breaker.
The resemblance between this weapon and the blade of a wasp’s sting can be seen at a glance. There is another form of the Brise-épée which is so strangely like the cutting apparatus of one of the saw-flies, that an outline sketch of the one would answer very well for the other.
WAR AND HUNTING.
CHAPTER III.
PROJECTILE WEAPONS AND THE SHEATH.
Propulsive Power.—The Pea-shooter and its Powers.—An Attack repulsed.—Clay Bullets.—Puff and Dart.—The Sumpitan of Borneo, and its Arrows.—The Zarabatana or Pucunha of South America, and its Arrows.—The Air-gun.—Modern Firearms.—The Chœtodon, or Archer-fish.—The Pneumatic Railway.—The Throwing-stick and its Powers.—Australians, Esquimaux, and New Caledonians.—Principle of the Sheath.—Waganda Spears.—Sheathed Piercing Apparatus of the Gnat, Flea, and Bombylius.—Indian Tulwar and Cat’s Claw.—The Surgeon’s Lancet, and Piercing Apparatus of the Gad-fly and Mosquito.
WE will now take some of the analogies between Projectile Weapons of Art and Nature, selecting those in which the propulsive power is air or gases within a tube. Whether the weapon be a blow-gun, an air-gun, or a firearm of any description, the principle is the same. We will take them in succession, choosing first those of the simplest and most primitive character.