Swartboy had no wish to take the ostrich alive. The bird would be of no use to him in that way, as the skin and plume-feathers were the spoils upon which the Bushman’s thoughts were bent, or rather the rix-dollars which these would yield on Swartboy’s return to Graaf Reinet. Therefore he did not intend to catch the old cock, but kill him, if he could.
But how was the Bushman to accomplish this? Would he borrow the rifle from Hendrik, or the great elephant-gun—the “roer”—from Groot Willem, and shoot the ostrich? Not likely. Swartboy was no shot, that is, with fire-arms. He knew nothing about them; and with either rifle or roer he could scarcely have hit an elephant, much less an ostrich!
But if Swartboy knew not how to manage a gun, he had a weapon of his own that he did know how to manage,—his bow. With that tiny bow,—scarce a yard in length,—and those small slender arrows, the Bushman could send a missile as deadly as the leaden bullet of either rifle or roer.
Looking at the light reed, with its little barbed head and feathered shaft, you would scarcely believe it possible that such a weapon could bring down the big strong ostrich; and yet with a similar shaft had Swartboy often levelled the great camelopard in the dust. A deadly and dangerous weapon was the Bushman’s arrow.
But what rendered it so? Not its size, and surely not the force with which it could be projected from that tiny bow? Neither. There was something besides the strength of the bow and the weight of the arrow to make it a “deadly and dangerous weapon.” There was poison.
Swartboy’s arrows were true Bushman weapons,—they were poisoned. No wonder they were deadly.
The use of the bow among savage nations all over the earth, and the great similarity of its form and construction everywhere, may be regarded as one of the most curious facts in the history of our race. Tribes and nations that appear to have been isolated beyond all possible communication with the rest of the world, are found in possession of this universal weapon, constructed on the same principle, and only differing slightly in details—these details usually having reference to surrounding circumstances. When all else between two tribes or nations of savages may differ, both will be found carrying a common instrument of destruction,—the bow and arrows.
Can it be mere coincidence, like necessities in different parts of the world producing like results, or is this possession of a similar weapon among distant and remote peoples a proof of unity or communication between them in early times?
These inquiries would lead to a long train of reflections, which, however interesting, would here be out of place.
But an equally or still more curious fact is that of poisoned arrows. We find here and there, in almost every quarter of the globe, tribes of savages who poison their arrows; and the mode of preparing and using this poison is almost exactly the same among all of them. Where there is a difference, it arises from the different circumstances by which the tribe may be surrounded.