Some of the latter are so curved in their unstrung state that their ends nearly meet, and are so stiff, when strung, that I cannot draw them to more than half the length of a 25½-in. arrow. [Fig. 15] shows a bow of this kind in my collection.
Fig. 15. Sketch of a very powerful Turkish Bow with its Arrow and Bow-string.
Such bows as these require a pull of 150 to 160 lbs. to bend them to their full extent, which quite accounts for the marvellous, but well authenticated, distances attained in flight-shooting by the muscular Turkish bowmen of bygone days.
Though 367 yards is a short range in comparison with that which the best Turkish archers were formerly capable of obtaining, it is, so far as known, much in excess of the distance any arrow has been shot from a bow since the oft-quoted feat of Mahmoud Effendi in 1795, [p. 119].
Full corroboration of the wonderful flight-shooting of the Turks may be found in some treatises on Ottoman archery which have been translated into German by Baron Hammer-Purgstall (Vienna, 1851).
In his directions concerning the selection of suitable bows and arrows for the sport, one of the Turkish authors quoted by Purgstall writes: ‘The thinnest and longest flying arrow has white swan feathers shaped like leaves,[50] and this arrow, with a good shot, carries from 1,000 to 1,200 paces.’
[50] Anglice, Balloon feathers.
The orthodox length of a pace is thirty inches, and thus even 1,000 paces, or the lesser range mentioned, would exceed 800 English yards.
Augier Ghislen de Busbecq (1522–1592), a Belgian author and diplomatist, describes the Turkish archery he witnessed when ambassador to the court of Solyman, and the well-nigh incredible distances to which he saw arrows propelled.