[105] It is instructive to note the novel application of old inventions to general use when the necessities of the age demand them. The detonating and explosive force of gunpowder was known, in the form of squibs and fireworks, centuries before firearms were required. The power of steam, as a whirling toy and a copper vessel prove, was familiar to the old Egyptians, and perhaps to the Greeks and Romans under the name of æolipylæ αἰόλου πύλαι. But only at the end of the last century its motive force attracted general attention; it became a necessary of civilised life, and at once superseded the sailer and the stage coach. And by aid of the Past we may project the Future. Man will bungle over the balloon, but he will never fly straight till railways and steamers become too slow for him: when ‘levitation,’ in fact, shall become a necessity. Now the mode of transit would be an unmitigated evil to humanity.
[106] In the Monuments Civils of the Salle de l’Est, Vitrine A. H., at the south side. I can give only the old arrangement, which was changed in 1879–80. During my last visit (November 1882) the new order had not been completed. These club-swords are accompanied by throw-sticks, hatchets, and knob-kerries. The old Lisáns from Thebes are illustrated by Wilkinson (loc. cit. i. 5). The name, however, is not ‘lissan,’ and they are not made of acacia, a soft wood that readily perishes. Why will writers confound acacia and mimosa?
[107] The arrangement of the Swords when I last visited the collection (August 1878) was temporary till classified. The wooden blades referred to were in the Petrie Section (Case 21) to the east.
[108] So the sovereign of England appointed his Lord High Treasurer by handing over to him a white rod, and the Lord Steward of the Household by presenting a white staff with the words: ‘Seneschall, tenez le bâton de nostre hostiell.’ Holding the staff was equivalent to the royal commission, and when not in the presence it was carried by a footman bareheaded. On the death of his liege lord the great functionary broke the staff over the corpse, and his duties were at an end. The Lord Marshall of England was expressly permitted to bear a gold truncheon with the royal arms at one end, and on the other his own enamelled in black. The king solemnly gave the ‘Marshall’s rod’ into the hands of Maude, daughter of the Earl of Pembroke, who made it over to her son, Earl Roger.
[109] It derives from booroomooroong; and the latter denotes, among the Maoris, a part of the ceremonies practised when the boys are being made men. The symbol, we are told (Collins, New South Wales, p. 346), is knocking out a tooth with the aid of a throwing-stick. Mr. Howard Spenseley (loc. cit.) makes the average boomerang 60 centimètres long by 0·6 broad and 0·15 thick: he gives it a flight of 100 mètres.
[110] Strangers in Egypt often suppose the true asp to be the Cerastes, or horned snake. As the hieroglyphics and the monuments prove, it is invariably the cobra de capello (Coluber Haja), an inhabitant of Africa as well as of Asia. The colour of this deadly thanatophid—which annually kills thousands in India—varies with its habitat from light yellow to dull green and dark brown. The worst I ever saw are upon the Guinea Coast.
[111] Anthrop. Soc. July 11, 1882. General Pitt-Rivers, I believe, would localise the boomerang to the neighbourhood of the Indian Ocean, and deny it to Europe and America.
[112] Loc. cit. vol. i. chap. iv. pp. 235, 236, 237, in the abridged edition.
[113] Lib. iv. 4, § 3.
[114] Pragmateia, vi. 22, § 1; a fragmentary but admirable account of the Roman army.