chapter 125

). The portable shrines of the great Egyptian gods originated the Tabernacle, which grew to be the Temple; it corresponds with the Σχήνη ἱερὰ or movable tent of the Carthaginians. The African practice of circumcision was probably intended originally as a prophylactic against syphilis, of which traces have been found in prehistoric bones. The peculiar Jewish hatred for pork is reasonless unless we explain it by a superstitious horror of the Typhonian beast. Rationalists tell us that the meat was religiously forbidden because unwholesome in the tropics, a _causa non causa_: it is the favourite food in the Brazil, in China, and in Christian India; even the Maráthás will eat wild hog; nor are the habits of the animal more filthy than the duck’s. The truth is that these dietary prohibitions served to make a _differentia_, to disunite man, to pit race against race and to feed the priest.

But while the Hebrews drew largely upon the wisdom (and the unwisdom) of Egypt, they ruthlessly cast out the eminently Nilotic ideas of a Soul, of a Judgment of the Dead, and of a future state of rewards and punishments—three tenets which, in modern days, form the very foundation of all faiths. ‘If a man die, shall he live (again)?’ asks Job (xiv. 14), in a chapter showing that life once lost is lost for ever.[482] And apparently from the days of Moses this was the peculiarity of ‘Semitic’ thought; it lived in the Present and had no Future, or rather it spurned the world to come. ‘Moses,’ says Professor Owen, ‘could not admit the after-life, or teach of reward and retribution in a future state, without risk of tainting his monotheism with some trace of the manifold symbolism environing the “divine son of Amen” (Osiris), who after suffering loss of the mortal life, which he had assumed for bettering his kind, became, on resigning his divinity, their judge.’ The Hebrews adopted Soul and Judgment, Heaven and Hell, many centuries after Moses from their Assyrian kinsmen,[483] who also supplied them with their present names for the twelve months and sundry astronomical notions. And their modern descendants by universally accepting a Resurrection have done that against which Moses so carefully guarded.

I need hardly say that the mythologies of Greece, Etruria, and Rome only corrupted Egyptian mysteries and metaphysics. Three instances will suffice: Charon is a degraded Horus; Minos is Mena, and Rhadamanthus contains the word Amenti, the right side (of Osiris), the west. Nor can we be surprised if Egypt is now giving rise to scientific superstitions. Every reader of ‘Pyramid Literature’ will note the mysterious influence which Kemi is exercising upon the modern mind.[484]

[Heading: _EGYPTIAN METALLURGY._]

In the preceding chapters I have noted the development of metallurgy by the ancient Egyptians. They probably began with gold,[485] the easiest of all ores to find and to work; it was abundant in Upper Egypt, and about B.C. 1600 they found a California in ‘Kush’ (Æthiopia). They called it Tum, Khetem, and Nb, which is variously pronounced Nebu, Neb, and Nub, whence Nubia. It has two hieroglyphic determinatives [Hieroglyphs], the necklace and the washing-bowl covered with the straining-cloth. The Kemites called silver ‘white gold,’[486] showing the movement of invention; and they could draw silver wire three thousand years ago. Wilkinson (II. chap. viii.) remarks, ‘The position of the silver-mines is unknown’; but he wrote before the discovery of Midian, where surface-stones have been picked up containing three ounces per ton. As their pictures prove, they worked iron, although little has outlasted the corrosion of Time. They applied the blow-pipe to the works of the whitesmith. They were well acquainted with soldering by lead or alloys,[487] as is shown by the Shesh or Sistrum of Mr. Burton. I may here remark parenthetically that this _crepitaculum_ used in temple-service gave rise to the Maracá or Tammaraka, the sacred rattle, a gourd full of pebbles worshipped by the Brazilian Tupis, who thus acknowledged the mysterious influence of rhythmic sounds.[488] They were skilful in the damascening[489] or inlaying of weapons, an invention claimed by those model ‘claimants,’ the Greeks. Their simple process was to cut out the ground, to hammer in gold and silver, and, finally, to file and polish the surface.[490]

[Heading: _EGYPTIAN WEAPONS._]

The metallurgic proficiency of Old Egypt would lead to the development of arms and armour, and enable the soldier to win easier victories over the ‘vile, impure, and miserable Gentiles’—i.e. all men except themselves. The god Anhar, or Shu, is ‘Lord of the Scymitar.’ Horus, as a hawk-headed mummied deity, is seated holding two Swords. Amen-Ra, Lord of Hab, is a ‘great god Ramenma, “Lord of the Sword.”’ The ‘wearer of the Pshent or double crown’ (the Pharaoh), the image of Monthu, god of war, was _ex-officio_ ‘His Holiness’ (high-priest) and Commander-in-Chief, who personally led his warriors to ‘wash their hearts’ (cool their valours) as the Zulus wash their spears. Like Horus, he is ‘valiant with the Sword.’[491] When going to war he was presented with the ‘Falchion of Victory,’ and thus addressed: ‘Take this weapon, and smite with it the heads of the unclean.’ In paintings and sculptures he is a large and heroic figure: he draws the bow, he spears or cuts down the foe, and he drives his war-car over the bodies of the slain. His soldiers are divided into Calasiri (Krashr[492] or bowmen) and Hermotybians, the latter unsatisfactorily derived[493] from ἡμιτύβιον, a strong linen (waist-?) cloth. The two divisions represent the second of the five castes, ranking below the priestly and above the agricultural: they held one of the three portions into which the land was divided. Recruits were taught in the military schools that originated the Pentathlon and the Pancratium, the Palæstra and the Gymnasium. They were carefully trained to gymnastics, as the monumental pictures in the Beni Hasan tombs show; they used Mogdars or Indian clubs, and they excelled in wrestling, though not in boxing. The royal statues are those of athletes, with their broad shoulders, thin flanks and well-developed muscles. The soldier practised single-stick, the right hand being apparently protected by a basket-guard, and the left forearm shielded by a splint or splints of wood, strapped on, and serving for a shield (fig. 152).

The standing army consisted of foot and horse,[494] the latter being mostly in chariots; and they were divided into corps, regiments, battalions, and companies. The men were officered by Chiliarchs (colonels), Hekatontarchs (captains), and Dekarchs (sergeants), as the Greeks called them. The ‘heavies’ were armed with a long strong spear and an immense shield provided with a sight-hole. Some carried the ‘Lisán’-club, the battle-axe, and the mace; and almost all had for side arms pole-axes,[495] Swords, falchions, and daggers. The ‘light bobs’ were chiefly archers and slingers, also weaponed with ‘Lisáns,’ axes, war-flails, and Swords. The chariot-corps or cavalry, besides bows and arrows, had clubs and short Swords for close quarters. The battle-axes show clear derivation from the stone celt, which supplied the hieroglyphs with the word Natr or Netr (Neter, &c.), meaning god, gods, or goddess ([Hieroglyphs]).[496] In the Demotic alphabet the axe was K (_Kelebia_).

[Illustration: FIG. 152.—SINGLE-STICK IN EGYPT.]

[Illustration: FIG. 153.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIER AND SHIELD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 154.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 155.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 156.—1. EGYPTIANS FIGHTING, FROM PAINTINGS OF THEBES; 2. EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS, FROM THEBAN BAS-RELIEFS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 157.—BRONZE HATCHETS IN WOODEN HANDLES, BOUND WITH THONGS. (Heads, 3 and 4½ inches, Hefts, 15½ and 16½ inches.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 158.—POLE-AXES.]

[Illustration: FIG. 159.—KHETEN OR WAR-AXES.]

The action began, at the sound of the trumpet, with an advance of light-infantry, bowmen, slingers, and javelineers. Then came the charge by the ponderous phalanx of ten thousand men, one hundred in front by one hundred deep, and flanked by chariots and cavalry. Thus the close combat was not the disorderly system of duels that prevailed in the barbarous Middle Ages of Europe. In storming fortified places they used the pavoise and testudo, the ram, the scaling-ladder, the bulwark or movable tower, and the portable bridge. They were also skilful military miners.

[Heading: _THE EGYPTIAN SWORD._]

The Egyptian phalanx was armed with the large shield, lance, and Sword; the latter was generally called Seft, [Hieroglyphs], or [Hieroglyphs], or [Hieroglyphs]; also inverted to Setf, [Hieroglyphs]: it becomes Sifet in Æthiopia, and in Berber Siwuit. The weapon in the hieroglyphs is of four different shapes. The first is the boomerang-Sword [Hieroglyphs], _m_ or _ma_, meaning ‘to destroy’: this M is the root of the Hebrew and Arabic _Maut_ and the Prakrit-Sanskrit, _Mar_. The second is the Knife-Sword [Hieroglyphs], _At_ or _Kat_, the determinative of cutting. These two are joined [Hieroglyphs] in the root _ma_ (cut, mow). The third is the Khopsh, Khepsh, or Khepshi, [Hieroglyphs], the sickle-Sword, still used in Abyssinia and throughout Africa: with a flattened curve it became the Hindu Kubja, the Greek ‘Kopis,’ and the Gurkha ‘Kukkri.’ The second two are combined in the root Smam, [Hieroglyphs], ‘to smite.’ Other names of the Sword are Ta or Nai, [Hieroglyphs], and Nai, Na’ui, or Nakhtui, [Hieroglyphs].

The falchion (_ensis falcatus_), called Shopsh, Khepsh, or Khopsh,[497] is represented as early as the Sixth Dynasty (after B.C. 3000). Hence, says Meyrick, the Κοπὶς of Argos—Argolis being a very mixed province, where the base was Pelasgian and the superstructure was Egyptian; the latter introduced by Danaus, and followed by the Phœnicians, who founded the town Phœnicia. Quintus Curtius (lib. iii.) says: ‘Copides vocant gladios leviter curvatos, falcibus similes, quibus appetebant belluarum manus.’ Apuleius (‘Met.’ lib. xi.) also speaks of ‘copides et venabula.’[498]

Evidently the Egyptian Sf, Sefi, Seft, or ‘Sword’ generically,[499] gave rise to the Mesopotamian Sibir, Sibirru, and Sapara; to the Greek ξίφ-ος; to the Aramæan Saiph, Sipho, and to the Arabic صيف (Sayf-un), the second syllables being merely terminative; while the Latin _spatha_ and the German Schwerte, and our Swerde and Sword, are the latest echoes of Sef and Seft. The Germans say rightly, ‘Nichts wandert so leicht als Waffen und Waffennamen.’

[Illustration: FIG. 160.—DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE EGYPTIAN KHOPSH (KOPIS), WITH EDGES INSIDE AND OUTSIDE.]

Another Egyptian name for the sickle-shaped blade is Khrobi,[500] which suggests the Hebrew Hereb (a weapon, a Sword). We are also sure that the words are primitive Egyptian: the proof is that the symbol of ‘Má’ (‘destroy’ &c.), the Khopsh or _ensis falcatus_, is the numeral nine; and the straight flesh-blade (_Kt_) is the pronoun thou, thee: the two together alluded to the oldest religious practice.[501]

The falchion, shaped in the pattern of Ursæ major (?), was thick-backed and weighted with bronze; the blade, in later days at least,[502] was of iron or steel, as shown by the blue colour. Champollion[503] notices blue Swords with golden hilts in the tomb of Ramses III., and a ‘weapon Kops’ with the gold, of which the hilt consists, running up the concave back of the blade. ‘The gold was therefore either sunk into the iron, or gilded on the back. In other cases the Kops of kings was entirely of gold, or, like other Swords, entirely of brass (copper?). In another similar weapon, brass (copper?) and iron were blended in the blade.’ An iron ‘Kops’ was found in a tomb at Gurnah.

[Illustration: FIG. 161.—1. EGYPTIAN SLING; 2. UNKNOWN WEAPON; 3. SHEATHED DAGGER; 4. HATCHET; 5. SCORPION, OR WHIP-GOAD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 162.—EGYPTIAN DAGGERS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 163.—EGYPTIAN DAGGER OF BRONZE IN BRITISH MUSEUM.]

[Illustration: FIG. 164.—OFFICER OF LIFE-GUARD TO RAMSES II., APPARENTLY ASIATIC.]

[Illustration: FIG. 165.—BRONZE SWORD, FOUND AT AL-KANTARAH, EGYPT.]

The Khopsh, a sickle in type, and originally a throwing weapon as well as a cutting arm, was always carried by the Pharaoh, who used it indifferently with the pike (_Taru_), the mace, axe (_Aka_, _Akhu_), battle-axe, or pole-axe (_Kheten_). Officers and privates, ‘lights’ as well as ‘heavies,’ also wielded it in pictures. Those commanding infantry-corps are armed with the simple stick like the Roman centurion and our drill-sergeant of bygone days.

[Illustration: FIG. 166.—1. AXE; 2. SPEAR-HEAD; 3. KHOPSH; 4. LANCE-HEAD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 167.—BELT AND DAGGER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 168.—EGYPTIAN DAGGERS.]

The fourth or long-straight Sword, which does not appear in the hieroglyphs, had a two-edged cut-and-thrust leaf-shaped blade from two and a half to three feet long,[504] with a foining point like that of the Somal.[505] These large weapons seem to have been used by foreign mercenaries. The leaf- also becomes a trowel-form, betraying its origin and derivation, the spear-head. The grip was hollowed away in the centre, gradually thickening at either end, and was sometimes inlaid with metal, stones, and precious woods. The pommel of that worn in the Pharaoh’s girdle is surmounted by one or more hawk-heads, this bird being the symbol of Ra[506] (the Sun). The handle is also adorned with small pins and studs of gold, shown through suitable openings in the front part of the sheath. With this weapon the warrior stabs the enemy in the throat, as Mithras strikes the bull behind the shoulder. A modified form was the Sword-dagger, of which two are sometimes represented with the Pharaoh: it was generally carried in the belt. This shape of weapon found its way to the Caucasus;[507] and the Georgian Khanjar, hanging to the girdle in the place of the Sword, is also a survival.

[Illustration: FIG. 169.—ASSYRIAN DAGGERS, SHEATHS, AND BELTS. (BRITISH MUSEUM.)]

The Egyptian weapon is of various lengths. The bronze blade of Amunoph II., found by Wilkinson at Thebes, measures only five and a quarter inches: others rise to seven and even ten. Mr. Salt’s specimen in the British Museum covers eleven and a half inches, including the handle; and others reach one foot, and even sixteen inches. Many of these blades taper from an inch and a half to two-thirds of an inch near the point. Dr. John Evans[508] has a Sword, found at ‘Great Kantara’ during the construction of the Suez Canal; the blade is leaf-shaped, and measures seventeen inches, and the whole length twenty-two inches and three-eighths (fig. 165). ‘Instead of a hilt-plate, it is drawn down to a small tang about three-sixteenths of an inch square. This again expands into an octagonal bar about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, which has been drawn down to a point, and then turned back to form a hook, perhaps the earliest mode of hanging to the belt.’ At the base of the blade are two rivet-holes, and the hilt must have been formed of two pieces which clasped the tang. Dr. Evans also mentions a bronze Sword-blade, presumably from Lower Egypt, in the Berlin Museum: it has an engraved line down each side of the blade; it is more uniform in width than the Kantara specimen, and the hilt is broken off.

[Illustration: FIG. 170.—DAGGER FROM THE CAUCASUS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 171.—EGYPTIAN CHOPPER-SWORDS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 172.—EGYPTIAN KHOPSH.]

Not a few Egyptian Swords are much thicker at the middle than at the edges, and many are slightly grooved. The bronze is so well tempered, either by hammering, by hydraulic pressure, or by phosphorisation (?), that it has retained spring and pliability after several thousand years, and is still elastic like the steel of our modern days. I have already noticed[509] the Passalacqua and the Harris daggers—both from Thebes. The dagger-handle was generally covered in part with metal like that of the Sword; and the sewing of the leather-sheath again recalls the hide-scabbard of the Somal.[510] The Egyptians, as the hieroglyphs prove, had also single-edged cutting-knives shorter than Swords, and apparently of steel; they resemble our flesh-knives,[511] and may correspond with the Greek μάχαιραι (Ang.-Sax. _Meche_), while the daggers proper represent the ἐγχειρίδια and the parazonia.

[Heading: _EGYPTIAN SWORDS._]

The long Sword must have been rare or rather barbaric, for it is seldom found in the pictures and bas-reliefs. Yet Rosellini figures one which resembles an Espadon or heavy two-handed weapon of our Middle Ages. An inscription of Ramses takes as booty from the Maxyes (Cyrenians) of Libya one hundred and fifteen Swords of five cubits (seven and a half feet), and one hundred and twenty-four of three cubits long.

[Illustration: FIG. 173.—BRONZE DAGGERS AND SHEATH (1 FOOT LONG). (From Theban Tomb, Berlin Museum.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 174.—SHAPES OF EGYPTIAN BLADES. (Meyrick.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 175.—SWORD-DAGGERS.]

Meyrick,[512] in his general introduction to the weapons of all nations (vol. i. Pl. 1), gives two forms of Egyptian blades, or rather choppers. One (_a_, fig. 174) is a straight bill-shaped cutting-blade with the tip upturned, and the handle is provided with cords and tassels. This is in fact the old Turkish Scymitar and its offshoots, of which I have already spoken; and thus Egypt led to the chopper-types, which will presently be noticed. The other (_b_) is a curved Scymitar, with a bevelled end and a double cord at the hilt.[513] The former seems to be an imitation of the obsidian flake: the latter is a development of the Khopsh or sickle-Sword.

[Heading: THE SWORD IN AFRICA.]

And here I must temporarily abandon the chronological for the geographical order, and briefly treat of the Sword in modern Africa.

In the Dark Continent, as in the New World, the weapon has scant importance. Reviewing the arms of the former ‘Quarter,’ we must conclude that its favourites are the war-axe (employed in rough work), and the spear[514] (used in fine work); while the Sword proper is confined, as a rule, to Moslem Africa.

We have seen that in olden time the Mashaua (Maxyes) of Libya, bordering upon Egypt, used large Swords. The Adyrmachidæ, or ‘first Libyans’ of Herodotus (iv. 168), called by Silius Italicus (iii. 219) ‘gens accola Nili,’ were also armed with curved blades.

Denham and Clapperton inform us that the Knights of Malta exported great numbers of the straight double-edged blades which they affected, to Benghazi, in North Africa, where they were exchanged for bullocks. From the Tripolitan they were borne across the Sahará to Bornu, to Hausaland, and to Kano, where they were remounted for the use of the negroid Moslem population. Modern travellers note that the trade still continues at Kano, where some fifty thousand blades were annually imported across the Mediterranean—the reason is that these negroids cannot make their own. Hence they are passed on to the Pule (Fulah) and Fulbe tribes, the Hausas, the Bornuese, and others dwelling in the north-western interior. The great Mandenga family, miscalled Mandingos, are also purchasers of European blades, which they mount and sheathe for themselves. Far to the south-east Mr. Henry M. Stanley (_loc. cit._ i. 454) notes that the ‘King of Kishakka possesses an Arab scimitar, which is a venerated heirloom of the royal family, and the sword of the founder of that kingdom’ (?).

Barth (‘Travels’) has left us accurate though scanty details concerning the weapons of the North-Western and West-Central Africa. ‘Spears and Swords’ (say the people) ‘are the only manly and becoming weapons.’ The blade, mostly made at Solingen,[515] characterises the free and noble Amoshágh or Imoshágh; and all travellers remark that it preserves the old knightly form of crusading days; the low-caste Tawárik carry only the lance and the regular African Telak or arm-knife. The Forawy trust almost wholly to their Swords: the Kel-Owy (Khayl, or people, of the Owi Valley) and the Kel-Geres carry spear, Sword, and dagger. The Imgád, a degraded tribe of the negroid Berbers, are not allowed to use either Sword or spear: similarly the bow is confined to the servile caste among the Somal. The son of the Kazi, near Agades, was armed with an iron spear, Sword, and dagger (vol. i. 395): a Musghu chief had a boomerang-Sword (Front. vol. iii.). Few of the Baghirmi can afford ‘Kaskara’ (Swords), and they rarely wear the Kinyá or arm-knife: the favourite weapon of these races, as well as the Kamuri or Bornavis, is the Njiga or Golîyo, which has been noticed under the name of Danisko.[516] It is a short and double-pointed Egyptian hand-bill, thrown, as well as used for cutting. At Sokoto the traveller found good iron (iv. 180): at Kano, in Hausaland, he observed a blacksmith making, with the rudest tools, a leaf-shaped dagger, a long-ribbed, highly decorated, and very sharp blade. The Tawárik call the smith ‘Enhad’; in Timbukhtu he becomes the Mu’allim or artist.

The Sword-play of North Africa is that of Arabia and India, apparently borrowed from the original Sword-dance.[517] In Tangier it is picturesquely described by a lively Italian writer, Edmondo de Amicis.[518] ‘There were three swordsmen, and they used the stick in pairs. It is impossible to do justice to the extravagance and buffoonery (_goffagini_) of that _school_: I call it so because we saw the same style in the other cities of Marocco. There were all the movements of the rope-dance, high leaps without object, contusions, leg-actions, and blows, announced a whole minute before by an immense sweep of the arm. Everything was done with a holy phlegm which would have allowed one of our experts to have distributed, amongst all four, a volley of blows without the least risk of receiving one.’

The old Egyptian Sword-types spread deep into the Dark Continent, and preserve their forms to the present day. The Somal’s weapon shows the straight or spear-blade. The Shotel or Abyssinian Sword (fig. 176) is a direct descendant from the Khopsh-falchion. Nothing less handy than this gigantic sickle; the edge is inside, the grip is too small, and the difficulty of drawing the blade from the scabbard is considerable. The handle, four inches long, is a rude lump of black wood, and the tang is carried to the pommel and there clinched. The coarse and ugly blade has a mid-rib running the whole length, forming a double slope to the edges; it is one inch broad at the base, and tapers to a point which can hardly be used. The length along the arc is three feet thirty-seven inches; the curve, measuring from arc to chord, is two inches; and the projection beyond the directing line is four inches. The rough scabbard of untanned hide is shod with a hollow brass knob, a ferule ruder even than the blade; and a large iron buckle affixed to the top of the scabbard under the haft, connects with a belt or waist-strap. Such a weapon never belonged to a race of Swordsmen.[519]

The Africo-Arab tribes of the Upper Nile (e.g. the Bisharín) also preserve Egyptian forms derived from the Lisán-stick. The Galla Sword is shorter and simpler than the Egyptian. But the Flissa of Northern Africa, the Yataghan whose type, by the support of the Duc d’Aumale, supplied France for years with a bad bayonet, if borrowed from the Lisán, has assumed a peculiar curve. Colonel A. Lane-Fox looks upon this Flissa of the Kabyles (= Kabáil, the tribes) as resembling the ‘Kopis-blade straightened, like those represented in the hands of the Greek warrior on the vase in the Museum at Naples.’[520] Nothing can be better adapted for close fight than the handy stabbing weapon: stuck on the end of a musket, and making the barrel top-heavy, nothing can be worse. But, as the ‘military tailor’ in the British army seeks the philosopher’s stone in the shape of a suit of uniform that shall be at once warm and cool, heavy and light, airy and impermeable to wet, handsome and lasting, cheap and good, so the Frenchman would transform the bayonet into a _multum in parvo_, a Sword, a saw, _a coupe-choux_, in fact everything that a bayonet is not and ought not to be. The absurd Yataghan-bayonet has only lately been banished from the French army, and retains its place in most Continental forces.

[Illustration: FIG. 176.—ABYSSINIAN SWORD, A LARGE SICKLE.

(Breadth at hilt, 1 inch; tapers to point.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 177.—SMALLER ABYSSINIAN BLADE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 178.—ABYSSINIAN SWORD IN SHEATH.

(Scabbard open to allow passage of blade.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 179.—FLISSA OF KABYLES.]

The Sword amongst the Dankali tribes, who occupy the south-western shores of the Red Sea, north of the Somal, is evidently of European origin. The straight, thin blade, with two or more longitudinal grooves, is about four feet long, and broadens towards the point: the handle consists of a pommel, of a grip whipped with wire, and of straight quillons, forming a regular cross-guard. The modern weapons are made in Germany—I believe, at Solingen, which seems to supply all Africa north of the Equator.

[Illustration: FIG. 180.—DANKALI SWORD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 181.—CONGO SWORD.]

Our age has at length realised the fact that the heart of Africa is inhabited by a homogeneous race speaking tongues of the same family. It is a large and strong-bodied people, often cannibal, and showing no likeness with the negro of the tobacconist-shops. Scattered amongst these man-eaters, and possibly the aborigines of the country, are comparatively dwarfish tribes, evidently the crane-fighting Pygmies of Homer and Herodotus, now known from their various clans, Aká, Tikitiki, Doko, Wambilikimo (two-cubiters), and so forth. Both the dwarfs and the (comparative) giants, of whom the Mpángwe, or Fans, first became known in Europe, are metal workers, and both work well. They despise arms and tools that chip and snap, and therefore prefer to ours, with ample reason, their charcoal-smelted native produce, and they temper it by many successive heatings and hammerings without water-quenching.[521] According to Major Serpa Pinto (ii. 128) the Barotse temper their iron with ox-grease[522] and salt. He notes, however (ii. 356), that the Ganguellas ‘manufacture steel out of wrought iron, tempered by cold water, into which the metal is thrown while hot.’

The Gaboon river also produces the Babanga[523] (?), a leaf-shaped Sword with a square end, made at Batta, and used by the Mpángwe; a Glaive also leaf-shaped with a long handle, having a point at the butt end, and Swords with triangular blades more or less broadened at the apex.

Upon the glorious Congo river[524] I was shown a Sword belonging to the Mijolos or Mijeres, a tribe inhabiting the upper valley. All declared it to be of native make, and used during the Sword-dance performed in presence of the Prince. But it is an evident copy of some weapon of the fifteenth century; and the knightly model, like that of the Mpángwe (Fan) crossbow, had drifted into the African interior. The handle and its pommel were of ivory (in poorer weapons wood is used): the guard was a thin bar of iron springing from the junction of blade and grip; forming an open oval-shaped _pas d’âne_ below, and prolonged upwards and downwards in two quillons or branches, parallel with the hilt and protecting the hand. The blade, which had a tang for hefting, was straight, flexible, and double-edged.

[Heading: _AFRICAN SWORDS._]

In the Despotism of Unyoro, on the northern shores of the (Victoria) Nyanza Lake, Sir Samuel Baker found a knife of the Egyptian leaf-shape, the _Lingua di Bove_ of the Italians. The blade has a high mid-rib, and the handle is whipped round with copper wire. It is evidently used, like the Somal weapon, for stabbing as well as cutting.

[Illustration: FIG. 182.—UNYORO DAGGER-SWORD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 183.—ZANZIBAR SWORDS.]

The Arabs of Zanzibar preserve the old two-handed weapon of Europe, with a thin, flattish, double-edged blade ending in a bevelled point, and much resembling the executioner’s Sword prolonged. They bear the Solingen mark. Zanzibar, however, has two Swords. The shorter weapon (_a_, fig. 183) is three-grooved and single-edged, the blade measuring one foot ten inches; the handle and sheath are of copper, embossed or engraved, and adorned with fine stones. The second (_b_, fig. 183), which is the usual shape carried by Arab gentlemen, is three feet to three and a half feet long; the long tang tapers towards the hilt, and is cased in wood and leather; the pommel is cylindrical, and the grip wants guard and quillons. Demmin (p. 396) finds it ‘difficult to understand how this singular weapon could be wielded.’ It serves mostly for show, and when wanted is used like a quarterstaff with both hands. But the Zanzibari’s Sword is always clumsy, as dangerous to the wielder as the old blade of the Gauls and Ancient Britons. Their cousins, the Bedawin living about Maskat, have conserved with a religious respect, many ancient weapons won or bought in older days, and possibly dating from crusading times. These valuable articles travelled far: the Portuguese found amongst the Moors of Malacca ‘Swords bearing in Latin the inscription “God help me.”’

The Sword is also known to the blood-stained Despotisms that border the West Coast of Africa—Ashanti, Dahome, and Benin. Many of the shapes are borrowed: such are the Maroccan Yataghan, the Turkish or rather Persian Scymitar, and the Malay Krís (crease). Provided with silver hilts and scabbard mountings, they are generally wrapped in cloths, showing only the upper part of the sheath and grip. Some of the forms have developed till they look almost original, especially the short broad blades pierced with holes like fish-slicers, and ending in circinal curves. They suggest the well-known Indian choppers, and probably in both countries they derive from Egypt. In Ashanti-land and Dahome they are mostly of iron, some are of brass, and others of gold;[525] and they are fantastically punched into chevrons and pierced with open-work. These ‘fish-slicers’ are used in sacrifice and in beheading, an operation which they perform very badly. Mr. Henry M. Stanley[526] refers to ‘long-handled cleaver-like weapons’ amongst the savages of Makongo; and to iron bill-hooks and ‘massive cleaver-looking knives with polished blades’ in Karagwé.

[Illustration: FIG. 184.—GOLD COAST SWORDS.

(Captain Cameron.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 185.—ASHANTI SWORD-KNIFE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 186.—SWORDS OF KING GELELE OF DAHOME.]

[Illustration: FIG. 187.—BEHEADING SWORD.

Cutch; also used in Africa.]

[Illustration: FIG. 188.—WASA (WASSAW) SWORD.

Gold plates on wood, sewn with wire, and then beaten until the stitches can scarcely be seen.]

[Illustration: FIG. 189.—KING BLAY’S SWORD.

Gold leaf stamped and beaten. Sworn by before going to war, ‘If I come back, cut my head off.’]

Gezo,[527] the warrior king of Dahome or Ffon-land, who loved variety in, as well as number of, weapons, manufactured Swords with two blades like scissors. He also had _in terrorem_ a company of ‘Amazons,’ called Razor-women, from the ‘Nyek-ple-nen-toh’ blade. This was simply a European razor on a large scale, with a steel of thirty inches rising from a plain handle of black wood, and kept open by a spring. It was used to decapitate prisoner-kings, and the very look of it made the lieges tremble.

[Illustration: FIG. 190.—CAPTAIN CAMERON’S MANYUEMA SWORDLET, SHEATH, AND BELT. 1. Copper; 2. Wood; 3. Steel; 4. Wood; 5. Skin.]

My friend Captain Cameron[528] gives interesting details concerning the Sword in parts of Africa which he first visited, and he has kindly sent me a specimen of the Manyuema (Maniwema) Swordlet drawn to scale. He describes the Wahumla tribe as using double-edged blades of iron shaped like those of the Roman legionary. The chiefs adorn their steel blades with neat open-work in various patterns, and some carry a fringe of bells all along the lower side of the sheath. The belt of twisted hide loops into a rolled fur (often otter-skin), and ends in two bells: it is slung over the left shoulder. The Rehombo chiefs use similar blades with broad and crescent-shaped edges; the commoners are armed with heavy spears, and short knives, also used when feeding.

The people of the central Copper-lands[529] have only long knives shaped like spear-heads. Stanley (ii. 81) calls them ‘short Swords scabbarded with wood, to which are hung small brass and iron bells.’ The Swords used by the chiefs under ‘King Kasongo’ are left undescribed:[530] these weapons appear to be like those seen by me on the Congo. These negroes have a kind of sham attack in honour, a custom well known amongst the Bedawin. ‘When sufficiently bedaubed’ (with pipeclay or cinnabar) ‘the chief returned the bag to his boy, and, drawing his Sword, rushed at Kasongo, seemingly intent upon cutting him down; but just before reaching him, he suddenly fell on his knees, driving the Sword into the ground and rubbing his forehead in the dust.’

The Poucue (Pokwé) of the Lunda chiefs is not allowed to the people. This weapon (fig. 191) has also found its way from Egypt into lands far south of the Equator, and may be traced in the dagger-formed knives of the Ovampos. It is a large two-edged knife, three spans long by four inches broad: the sheath is of leather, and the weapon hangs under the left arm.[531] The Pokwé not a little resembles the short leaf-shaped iron blades from the Gaboon River, West Africa; and these again suggest the Swords and the spear-heads of the ‘Bronze Age.’ Stanley (ii. 228) shows the ‘Baswa knife’ on the Upper Congo exactly resembling the Pokwé; these weapons ‘vary in size from a butcher’s cleaver to a lady’s dirk’ (?). He also found ‘splendid long knives, like Persian Kummars’ (Khanjars?) and ‘bill-hook Swords.’

[Illustration: FIG. 191.—POKWÉ OF THE CAZEMBE’S CHIEFS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 192.—GABOON SWORDS, BOTH EVIDENTLY EGYPTIAN.]

[Illustration: FIG. 193.—CLEAVER OF THE HABSHI PEOPLE.]

The Habshi people inhabiting Janjhíra (El Jezírah = the island), off the West Coast of India, south of Bombay, retain a curious relic of their African origin. These negroids, who call themselves Abyssinians, are originally Wásawáhíli from Zanzibar. Their cleaver is a straightened Khopsh wholly of iron, handle, plain cross-guard and pommel (fig. 193). The blade is fifteen inches broad, the back is an inch and a half thick, and the weapon is as heavy as a man can wield. These ex-pirates, under the Habshi Nawwáb, are still feared, on account of their great strength[532] and violent temper, by all their effeminate Indian neighbours. It is well to note that in case of another ‘Indian Mutiny,’ we can easily raise on the eastern coast of Africa a negroid force sufficient to put it down.

[Illustration: FIG. 194.—FRANKISH BLADE, WITH MID-GROOVE OUT OF CENTRE.]

Colonel A. Lane-Fox[533] remarks that one of the most peculiar forms of Sword used in Africa is the corrugated, having an ogee-section. On each face a portion of the blade is sunk on one side only, and on the other face the depression is on the reverse side. Thus the transverse section somewhat resembles the angles of the letter Z. We can understand the use of this device when adapted to the pile of the arrow or the javelin. It would give the weapon a rotatory motion on the principle of the screw-propeller, the action being only reversed instead of the screw propelling itself by acting upon the surrounding medium: in this case the air impinges upon the screw flanges and rotates the arrow, thereby increasing the accuracy of its flight. But the peculiarity has been preserved where it is wholly useless; and, curious to say, this ogee-form is persistent in all the Swords obtained from the Caucasus, while the iron blades of Saxon and Frankish spears discovered in the graves of England and France have the same distinctive. Both may have derived it from Egypt: the Caucasians through Colchis, and Western Europe by means of the Phœnicians. The illustration is taken from the ‘Pagan Saxondom’ of Mr. J. Y. Akerman, who was the first to draw attention to the strange resemblance between the Saxon and Hottentot spears.[534]

Thus we see that whilst Egypt originated the three shapes of Sword-blades—straight, curved, and half-curved—the rest of Africa invented positively nothing in hoplology. Negroids and negroes either borrowed their weapons from Egypt or imported them from beyond the sea. Intertropical Africa never imagined an alphabet, a plough, or a Sword.

##