[27] Elphinstone’s History, ii. 468.
[28] It is, they say, adored at the old fortress and Maráthá capital, Sattára (= Sát-istara, the seven stars or Pleiades). Here, too, is Sívají’s Sword ‘Bhawáni,’ a Genoa blade of great length and fine temper. Mrs. Guthrie, who saw the latter, describes it (vol. i. p. 426) as a ‘fine Ferrara (?) blade, four feet in length, with a spike upon the hilt to thrust with.’ She also notices the smallness of the grip. The Indian Museum of South Kensington contains a bracelet of seven tiger’s-claws mounted in gold, with a claw clasp (No. 593, 1868). M. Rousselet, who visited Baroda in 1864, describes in his splendid volume one of the Gaekhwar or Baroda Rajah’s favourite spectacula, the ‘naki-ka-kausti’ (kushti). The nude combatants were armed with ‘tiger’s-claws’ of horn; formerly, when these were of steel, the death of one of the athletes was unavoidable. The weapons, fitted into a kind of handle, were fastened by thongs to the closed right hand. The men, drunk with Bhang or Indian hemp, rushed upon each other and tore like tigers at face and body; forehead-skins would hang in shreds; necks and ribs would be laid open, and not unfrequently one or both would bleed to death. The ruler’s excitement on these occasions often grew to such a pitch that he could scarcely restrain himself from imitating the movements of the duellists.
[29] Pliny, xxxii. 6.
[30] Thompson’s Passions of Animals, p. 225.
[31] Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates, i. 193.
[32] Prim. Warfare, i. p. 22.
[33] Prim. Warfare, i. p. 21.
[34] Ibid. ii. p. 22.
[35] The spiral horn is shown by Colonel Yule (Marco Polo, ii. 273, second edition) in an illustration as ‘Monoceros and the Maiden.’ The animal, however, appears from the short tail to be a tapir, not a rhinoceros. That learned and exact writer remarks that the unicorn supporter of the Royal Arms retains the narwhal horn. The main use of the latter in commerce is to serve as a core for the huge wax-candles lighted during the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church.
[36] So it is called in the Catalogue of the India Museum at South Kensington; the derivation is evidently from the Hindostani singh, a horn.