Tangapé (paddle), 42

Tang (tongue) of a Sword, 124

Tanged dagger, 278

— razor (British), 276

Taper-axe, 91, 94

‘Targe’ or ‘Target’ (derivation of), 12 _n_

Taru (Egyptian war-pike), 158

Tasso’s description of the Irish, 279

Tattooing (its origin), 269 _n_

Tax levied on iron in China, 114

‘Tears of the Heliades’ (= amber), 87

‘Tears of the sun,’ 67

Tectosages (Phrygia), war-cars of the, 277 _n_

Telak (African arm-knife), 162

‘Telamon,’ at Mycenæ, 231 _sq._

Telchines, 74, 76

Telluric iron, 99

Tempering (of iron) by cold immersion, 112, 165;

by oil, &c., 165 _n_

Temple-caves of Elephanta (Bay of Bombay), 217

Temple of Baal at Marseille, 181 _n_

— of Belus (_vulgò_ Tower of Babel), 55

— of Kanaruc, 109

Temples of Babylonia, 199

Τενέδιος πέλεκυς (origin of the proverb), 90

Terebinth, Syrian (‘oak’ of Mamre), 257

Terra cottas in Cyprus, 190;

in Troy, 193

Testudo (in sieges; Ancient Egypt), 154

Teufelsgraben, 271

Thane (derivation of the word), 215 _n_

Thapsus, Cæsar at the battle of, 260 _n_

The ‘First Highlander,’ 217

Thera (Grecian), bronze Sword from, 262

Thermutis (the princess who found Moses), 174 _n_

Thiudiskô (= Teutons), 274

Thong-sling, 19, 68

Thraces, 252

Thracian dance (in arms), 163 _n_

‘Thracian Magic,’ 238 _n_

Thracians, 210

Thracian Swords, 222 _sq._, 262

— weapons, 253

Three-sided blades, 66

Thresher (fox-shark: _Carcharias vulpes_), 7

Throw-spears of the Ancient Romans, 245

Throw-stick, 32, 40 _n_

Throw-Swords, German, 273

Thrusting blades, 134 _sq._

‘Thrusting cut,’ 134

Thrusting weapons (origin of), 12

Thuhi (= Naphtuhim), 102

Tiara of gold, 212

Tiger (its stroke or blow), 7;

the sabre-toothed tiger, 9

Tin, 54;

origin of the word, 77;

mines (ancient), 78

Tinkal (borax: India), 85 _n_

Tin-ore of Peru, 83

‘Tin-stone’ (native peroxide of tin), 71

Tilaniferous ores, 102

Toadstone (= todstein: German), 103 _n_

Tokkari (Syria), 179

Toletum (Spanish tradition of its origin), 256 _n_

Toledo blade, 107, 132;

rapier, 265

Tomahawk, 14 _n_, 36

Tombac (copper and gold alloy), 86, 87 _n_

Tombat (Australian weapon), 36 _n_, 38

Tomb of Alyattes, 194

— of Samson, 186 _n_

Tomb-stones at Mycenæ, 232

Tomeang (Malaccan weapon), 14 _n_

Tools of bronze, Assyrian, 202

Toothed-edge (of a Sword), 138

Topographical lists of Thut-mes III., 178

Tormenta (artillery: Roman), 248

Tormentum, 19, 20 _n_

Torques (Gallic ornament), 268

Tower of Babel, 55

‘Tower of Ilios’ (Troas), 191

Toxotes (Archer fish), 7

Toys in Ancient Egypt, 148

_Trachinus vipera_ (sting-fish or adder-pike), 11

Training for warfare, Roman, 239, 249

Transparent glass, Assyrian, 202

Transplanting full-grown trees (Ancient Egypt), 148

‘Treasury of Priam’ (Troas), 192

Treble-grooved claymore, 132

‘Tree-planting’ (= vivi-interment: Assyrian), 203

Trenchant or cutting weapons (origin of), 12, 13

Τρία κάππα κάκιστα, 97 _n_

Trialamellum, 135

Triangular small-Sword, 135 _n_

Triarii (Roman soldiers), 245 _n_

Tribulus, 15 _n_

Tribute-articles of Yu (Chinese), 112 _sq._

Tribute paid in copper, 68

Tridens (gladiatorial weapon), 253

Trident-like weapon in Nimrúd’s palace, 105

Trilingual Behistun Inscription, the, 209 _n_

Trimarkisia (class of cavalry: Gaul), 269 _n_

_Triodon_, 24

Triumphal Arch of Orange, 268 _n_

Troas, site of, 190

Trojan alphabet, 193

— battle-axes of copper and tin, 82 _n_

— Sphinx, 190 _n_

— war, date of, 220

— weapons, 191

Trombash (Abyssinian weapon), 36

Trowel-form blade, 159

Trowels of copper, 68

Troy, the age of, 193

Trumpets of copper, 72, 221

Truncheons (wooden) with stag-horn inserted, 49

Truth-telling races, 209 _n_

Tuba (Etruscan trumpet), 248

Tubal-Cain (etymology of the name), 182

Tubicines, 248

Tuck (rapier), 32, 123, 279

Tuisco or Tyr (regent of Tuesday), 270 _n_

Tumuli, finds in, 271

‘Turanian’ blade, 140

Turanian (Chinese) element in Babylonia, 200

— language, 146

Turkish flag (seven-rayed star on), 147 _n_

— scymitar, 139, 161, 166

Turquoise, 62

‘Tuscan’ border (architectural ornament), 202

Tutenag (zinc from India), 84 _n_

Tutiya (oxide of zinc), 86

Twastu, 1 _n_

Tweezers of copper and stone, 67

Twelve Tables, the, 244

Two-bladed Sword, 141

Two-edged axe (at Schliemann’s Troy), 82

— bronze Swords at Mycenæ, 230 _sq._

— German Sword, 271

— knives (pokwé), 170

— Roman stilettos, 257

— Spanish Swords, 265

— Sword-dagger, 184

Two-handed espadon (mediæval), 161, 166

— Swords, 67, 138

Two-headed eagle (Moslem heraldry), 176 _n_

‘Two-river’-land (Naharayn: Mesopotamia), 172

Two-wheeled war-cars, 277 _n_

Typhon (in Egyptian religion), 149

Tyr or Tuisco (regent of Tuesday), 270 _n_

Πρᾶγμα (? corruption of _onager_), 20 _n_

Ὕδωρ, 1 _n_

Uma or Umha (copper: Keltic), 65

Umbrella, King Koffee’s, 168 _n_

Umbria, coins cast in, 264 _sq._

Unicorn (on the Royal Arms), 11 _n_

Unyoro dagger-Sword, 166

Urim and Thummim (whence derived), 149

_Ursus spelæus_ (remains of), 24

Uruckh (= ‘pater Orchamus’), 199 _n_

‘Usem’-metal, 87

Uses of the Sword, 128

Utensils of bronze, Assyrian, 202

— in sepulchres at Mycenæ, 234

Vagina (Sword-sheath: Roman), 256

‘Valai Tadi’ (Madura throwing-stick), 38

Valley of Caves (Wady Magharah), the most ancient mines in the

world, 60

Vandals, Scandinavian, 274

Various forms of Swords found at Hallstadt, 262 _sq._

— names for Aphrodite, 187 _n_

— names for the Sword, 123

Vases of copper and of stone, 68

Velati (Roman soldiers), 245 _n_

Velites (Roman soldiers), 245

Venetian weapons at Famagosta, 190

Venus (of alchemy: = ♀), 57

Verdigris from a spear (Achilles’), 60

Vericulum (Roman javelin), 246 _n_

Verutum (Roman javelin), 246 _n_

Vexillarii (Roman soldiers), 249

Vexillum (Ancient Roman standard), 246 _n_

Viaticum (provisions for the dead), 234

Virtue of the Ancient Gauls, 269

Visigoths, weapons of the, 272 _n_

Vitriol (blue), 60

‘Vivisection,’ 225

Volcanic mud, 118

Voulge, 95

Waddy clubs (Australian), 38

Wady Magharah (Valley of Caves), the most ancient mines in the

world, 60

Waggons, military, as a ‘lager’ (Gallic), 269

Wágh-nakh (Hindú weapon), 8

Wait-a-bit (_Acacia detinens_), 6

Wall-cramps, in Nimrúd’s palace, 105

Walrus (how killed by polar bears), 3;

its method of attack, 9;

its tooth as a spear-point, 24

Wandering race of metal-workers, 275

Wánshi stone-throwers, 16

War-axes, 66, 154

War-clubs, 24, 32, 154

War-deities of Ancient Egypt, 152

Warfare (primitive), 4 _sq._

War-flails, 20 _n_, 154

War-hatchets (English), 91

Warlike character of Ancient Britons, 279

‘War-lions of the king’ (Ramses II.), 3 _n_

Warmen (Germani), 270

War-prisoners, treatment of, by Greeks and by Romans, 241, 249

War-quoit, 39

War-scythe, 95

Wasa or Wassaw (Sword), 168

Wattle and dab (huts of), 63

Wave-edged dagger, 137

Wave-pattern (architectural ornament), 202

‘Wayland Smith,’ the legend of, 121

WEAPONS—

in the Laws of the Visigoths, 272

in sepulchres at Mycenæ, 234

of Ancient Rome, 245 _sqq._

of Animals and Savages, 6

of bronze, Assyrian, 202

of gold, as royal presents, 212

of the Alemanni (Germani), 270

of the Ancient Egyptian soldiers, 152 _n_

of the Ancient Hindús, 214 _sq._

of the Ancient Irish, 279

of the Ancient Picts, 279

of the Ancient Scots, 279

of the Ancient Welsh, 279

of the Arabians, 185

of the Assyrians, 203

of the Carthaginians, 181

of the Cherusci, 271

of the Cimbri, 273

of the East Indians, 185

of the Fenni (Finns), 274

of the Gauls, 266, 269

of the Goths, 274

of the Lemovii (Pomerania), 274

of the Philistines, 185

of the Phœnicians, 179 _sq._

of the Rugii (Baltic), 274

of the Samnites, 253

of the Saxones, 271

of the Suardones, 271

of the Syrians, 179

of the Thracians, 253

of the Vandals, 274

of the warriors of Mycenæ, 234 _sq._

St. Michael’s weapon, 237

Weapon-making, 1

Weapon-symbol of Merodach, 183

Weapon-throwing in Homer, 222

Wedge-form tactical formation (Ancient German), 273

Welsen (_Siluri_), 29

‘Welsh of the Horn,’ 78

West and East, Egyptian, 191 _n_

Whale (its method of attack), 7

Wheel-drill and emery for alt-reliefs, 81

Wheeled tower, Assyrian, 203

‘White copper’ (South African name for gold), 62

‘White lead’ (of Pliny), 78, 79 _n_

Whorl, combined forms of the, 233

Wigs (of the Nilotes), 158 _n_

Winged bulls, Assyrian, 201 _n_

— Celts (or palstave), 71

— circle, the, as an architectural ornament, 201

— sphinxes in Cyprus, 189 _n_

Wing-wader of Australia (carries weapons in its wings), 9

Women instructed in the use of the Sword, &c. (Hindú), 215

Women’s dress-pins of copper, 67

Wood, Age of, 31

Wooden blades with metal edges, 51

— clubs spiked with iron, 105

— handles to bronze hatchets, 154

— sabres, 44;

chopper, _ib._;

knife, _ib._;

rapier-blade, 45

— Sword of Egypt, 39

— Sword-sheaths (Mycenæ), 228

— weapons with meteoric-iron chips, 51

Wootz or Wutz (‘natural Indian steel’), 110, 111

Word-compounding languages (Iranian), 146

Word-developing languages (Arabian), 146

Worked flints, 45 _n_

— hæmatite, 116

Worship offered to weapons, 162 _n_

Writing on leaden plates, 225 _n_

— on linen cloths, 225 _n_

Wrought iron in the ‘Odyssey,’ 224

Xerxes’ army, Cypriote contingent in, 188

— army of, 210

_Xiphias_ (Sword-fish), 11

Xiphos, Xiphidion (= Sword, in Homer), 222, 230

Xiphos-Gladius, 256

Xiphos, Spanish, 268

Ξυήλαι (Lacedæmonian weapons), 237

Ξυστοφόροι, 237

Yahveh (Jehovah), its etymology and mystic meaning, 149 _n_

Yantramukta (class of weapons: Hindú), 214

Yataghan-bayonet, 134 _n_, 164

Yataghan (weapon), 123, 134, 163, 166, 265

‘Yellow copper’ opposed to ‘native brass’ (English), 56

Yellow frankincense, 85 _n_

Ynka mines of iron, 116

Ynkas, ‘Royal Commentaries of’ the, 67

Yucatan (origin of the word), 65 _n_

Yunan (= Ionia), 209

Zanzibar Swords, 166

Zarabatana, 14 _n_

Zebra (its kick), 7

Zeno, the Stoic, in Cyprus, 187

Zeus-Jovi (= Jupiter), 183

Zeus Kasios, 1 _n_

Zinc, 57;

alloy with copper, 84;

derivation of the word, 84 _n_

Zinciferous ore imported from the East, 84

Zio (Saxnot: German Sword-god), 273

Zodiac, Denderah, 155 _n_

Ζωστήρ (meaning of the word), 239

Zú’l-Fikár (Mohammed’s Sword), 141

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I refer to a vivacious but one-sided article on ‘The Sword,’ in

_Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, May 1881.

[2] _The Past in the Present_, &c. (Edinburgh: Douglas, 1880.)

[3] Frederick the Great declared that an army moves like a serpent,

upon its belly. According to Plutarch, the snake was held sacred

because it glides without limbs, like the stars. Fire, says Pliny

(_Nat. Hist._ vii. 57, and xiii. 42), was first struck out of the stone

by Pyrodes, son of Cilix—_silex_, or flint, the match of antiquity;

and hence it was called πῦρ; and Vincent de Beauvais explains: ‘Silex

est lapis durus, sic dictus eo quod ex eo ignis exiliat.’ It is the

Sanskrit शिल (_shila_), a stone, both words evidently deriving from a

common root, _shi_ or _si_. The ‘religiosa silex’ of Claudian (_Rapt.

Proserp._ i. 201) was probably a block of stone like those representing

Zeus Kasios, the Paphian Venus, not to mention the host of stones

worshipped in Egyptian and Arab litholatry, and the old Palladium of

Troy transported to Rome. ‘Prometheus,’ who taught man to preserve

fire in the ferule, or stalk, of the giant fennel, was borrowed by

the Hindus and converted into Pramantha. ‘Pramantha,’ however, is

the upright fire-stick, first made by Twastu, the Divine Carpenter,

who seems to have been a brother of Ἑστία, the Hearth; and hence it

has been held to be the male symbol. According to Plato, πῦρ (whence

pyrites = sulphuret of iron), ὕδωρ, and κύων are Phrygian words; and

evidently they date from the remotest antiquity. _Pir_ (sun-heat) is

found even in the Quichua of Peru, and enters into the royal name

‘Pirhua.’ The French and Belgian caverns prove that striking fire by

means of pyrites was known to primitive man.

[4] There are still races which are unable to kindle fire. This is

asserted of the modern Andamanese by an expert, Mr. H. Man, _Journ.

Anthrop. Inst._ Feb. 1882, p. 272. The same was the case with the

quondam aborigines of Tasmania.

[5] This Adam Primus was of both sexes, the biune parent of Genesis (v.

3)—‘male and female created He them;’ hence the pre-Adamites of Moslem

belief. The capital error of Biblical readers in our day is to assume

all these myths and mysteries as mere historical details. Men had a

better appreciation of the Hebrew _arcana_ in the days of Philo Judæus.

[6] I have noted his labours in the list of ‘Authorities.’

[7] Chap. iii. p. 43, translated for the Hakluyt Society by Clements R.

Markham, C.B. (London, 1869). It is regretable that a senile Committee

of exceeding ‘properness’ cut out so much of this highly-interesting

volume. The Spaniard travelled in A.D. 1532–50, published the first

part of his work in 1553, and died about 1560. Readers who would study

the most valuable anthropological parts of the book are driven to the

French translation quoted by Vicente Fidel Lopez (_Les Races Aryennes

du Pérou_, p. 199. Paris, Franck, 1873).

[8] We need not go to the classics, Greek and Roman, for the idea of

metamorphosis. It is common to mankind, doubtless arising from the

resemblance of beast to man in appearance, habits, or disposition;

and it may date from the days when the lower was all but equal to the

higher animal.

[9] _Seven Years in South Africa_, 1872–79, vol. i. p. 245, and vol.

ii. p. 199 (Sampson Low and Co., 1881). The Simiads were African

baboons, which fear man less than those of other continents.

[10] Wilkinson, I. 1. Unruliness was punished by ‘stick and no supper.’

The old Nile-dwellers, like the Carthaginians and the mediæval Tartars,

were famous for taming and training the wildest animals, the cat o’

mountain, leopards, crocodiles, and gazelles. The ‘war-lions of the

king’ (Ramses II.) are famed in history. They also taught domestic cats

to retrieve waterfowl, and decoy-ducks to cater for the table.

[11] Thus Lucretius (v. 1301) calls the elephant ‘anguimanus.’ As is

well known, there is a quasi-specific difference between the Indian and

the African animal. The latter is shorter, stouter, and more compactly

built than the former; the shape of the frontal bones differ, the tusks

are larger and heavier, and the ears are notably longer. The latter

trait appears even in old coins. Judging from the illustrated papers, I

should not hesitate to pronounce the far-famed Jumbo to be an Asiatic,

and not, as usually held, an African.

[12] The word wrongly written ‘Esquimaux,’ which suggests a French

origin, is derived from the Ojibwa _Askimeg_, or the Abenakin

_Eskimantsic_, meaning ‘eaters of raw flesh.’ Old usage applies it

to the races of extreme North America, and of the Asiatic shore

immediately opposite. _Innuit_, a more modern term, signifies only

‘the people,’ like _Khoi-khoi_ (‘men of men’), the Hottentots, and

like ‘Bantu’ (Folk), applied, or rather misapplied, to the great South

African race. _Innuit_, moreover, is by no means universal. The Eskimos

supply a valuable study; amongst other primæval peculiarities, they

have little reverence for the dead, and scant attachment to place.

[13] ‘Brave Master Shoe-tye, the great traveller’ (_Measure for

Measure_, iv. 3). The tale of porcupines ‘shooting their quills at the

dogs, which get many a serious wound thereby,’ is in M. Polo (i. 28).

Colonel Yule quotes Pliny, Ælian, and the Chinese. The animal drops its

loose quills when running, and when at bay attempts, hedgehog-like, to

hide and shield its head. It is, as the Gypsies know, excellent eating,

equal to the most delicate pork; only somewhat dry without the aid of

lard.

[14] Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. chap. 4), quoted in chap. 2.

[15] _Odyss._ xviii. 130, 131. ‘Qui multum peregrinatur, rarò

sanctificatur,’ said the theologians. Hence the modern:—

Whoso wanders like Ulysses

Soon shall lose his prejudices.

[16] Sir John Lubbock has calculated that among the North American

savages the proportion of man to the animals which feed him is 1 to

750; and, as the hunter is at least four times as long-lived as his

prey, the ratio might be increased, 1 to 3000. If this were so, and

all the bones were preserved, there would be 3,000 bestial skeletons

to one human. Without assuming with Mr. Evans (p. 584) that ‘respect

for the dead may be regarded as almost instinctive in man,’ and that

human remains would be buried, we here find one cause of the present

insufficiency of the geologic record.

[17] M. Eduard Pietri distributes Prehistoric Archæology proper into

two ages, the Agreutic and the Georgic. Under the former he classifies

the Barylithic (glacial Drift age) and the Leptolithic. Under the

Georgic are included the Neolithic, the Chalcitic (copper and bronze),

and the Proto-sideric.

[18] _Essay on Man_, iii. 172–6.

[19] The sepia (squid, cuttle-fish, _Loligo vulgaris_) defends itself

by discharging its ‘ink-bag’ embedded in the liver, and escapes in the

blackened water. This is as true a defence as a shield.

[20] From the Greek τὸ τόξον, the bow (and arrow, _Iliad_, viii. 296),

which seems to be a congener of the Latin _taxus_, the yew-tree, a

favourite material for the weapon. Hence _taxus_, like the Scandinavian

_îr_ or _ŷr_, the Keltic _jubar_, and the Slavonian _tisu_, all meaning

the yew-tree, denote the bow as well. The Skalds called the bow also

_almr_ (elm-tree), and _askr_, or mountain-ash, the μελία, which the

Greeks applied to the spear. From τόξον came τοξικὸν, ‘arrow-poison,’

the Latin _toxicum_, whose use survives in our exaggerated term

‘intoxicating liquors.’

[21] This I know to my cost, having offended a Guanaco at Cordova,

in the Argentine Republic; it straightway spat in my face with

unpleasantly good aim.

[22] Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes_, ii. chap. 2.

[23] Not unlike the name of a certain Australian Wagga-Wagga which has

been heard in the English law-courts.

[24] In _Land and Water_ doubts have been thrown upon these single

combats of the whale and thresher. See the late Mr. Buckland’s papers

(October 2, 1880); Lord Archibald Campbell’s sketch; and the same

paper, February 26, 1881. Those on board the wrecked cruiser H.M.S.

_Griffon_, myself included, witnessed a fight between whale and shark

in the Bay of Biafra (1862?). The Carcharias family takes its name from

the sharp and jagged teeth, ἀπὸ τῶν καρχαρῶν ὀδόντων.

[25] _Anthrop. Collection_, p. 180. Demmin, however, is additionally

incorrect by making the article ‘two and a half feet in length’ (_Arms

and Armour_, p. 413, Bell’s edition, London, 1877). In _Catalogue of

Indian Art in the South Kensington Museum_, by Lieut. H. H. Cole, R.E.

(p. 313), Sívají is made to murder the Moslem with the ‘bíchwa,’ or

scorpion, a ‘curved double blade.’ This probably refers to the dagger

which made ‘sicker.’

[26] P. 402, where he calls ‘Sívají’ _Sevaja_.

[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.

[37] Boutell (_Arms and Armour_, fig. 61, p. 269) engraves a parrying

weapon with a blade at right angles to the handle. He calls it a

‘Moorish Adargue’ (fifteenth century). The latter word (with the

_r_) is simply the Arabic word _el-darakah_, a shield, the origin

of our ‘targe’ and ‘target.’ The adaga (not _adarga_, cantos i. 87,

viii. 29) with which Camoens in _The Lusiads_ (ii. 95, &c.) arms the

East Africans is a weapon of the Mádu kind. I have translated it

‘dag-targe,’ because in that part of the world it combines poniard and

buckler. The savage and treacherous natives of the Solomon Islands (San

Christoval, &c.) still use a nondescript weapon, half Sword and half

shield, some six feet long.

[38] Captain Speke’s _Dictionary of the Source of the Nile_, p. 652

(Edinburgh: Blackwoods, 1863).

[39] In the form called _Manchette_, or cutting at hand, wrist, and

forearm with the inner edge. It is copiously described in iv. 45–54 of

my _New System of Sword Exercise_, &c. (London: Clowes, 1876).

[40] _Primitive Warfare_, p. 24.

[41] Sir Charles Lyell, _Geological Evidences of Antiquity of Man_,

p. 13 (London: Murray, 1863). Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay (_Proc. Soc. Ant.

Scot._ vol. v. p. 327) says of the Maori _tokis_ or stone-hatchets,

they were used chiefly for cutting down timber and for scooping

canoes out of the trunks of forest trees; for driving posts for huts;

for grubbing up roots, and killing animals for food; for preparing

firewood; for scraping the flesh from the bones when eating, and

for various other purposes in the domestic arts. But they were also

employed in times of war as weapons of offence and defence, as a

supplementary kind of tomahawk.

[42] The French _sarbacane_, the Italian and Spanish _cerbotana_, the

Portuguese _gravatana_, and the German _Blasrohr_ (blow-tube) is,

according to Demmin (p. 468), _arbotana_, or rather _carpicanna_,

derived from ‘Carpi,’ the place of manufacture, and the Assyrian

(_Kane_), Greek and Latin κάννα (_canna_), whence ‘cannon.’ This tube,

spread over three distinct racial areas in Southern Asia, Africa,

and America, is used either for propelling clay balls or arrowlets,

poisoned and unpoisoned. It is the sumpitan of Borneo, where Pigafetta

(1520) mentions reeds of this kind in Cayayan and Palavan Islands.

The hollow bamboo is still used by the Laos of Siam, and is preserved

among the Malagasy as a boyish way of killing birds. Père Bourieu notes

it among the Malaccan negrito aborigines, whom the Moslem Malays call

‘Oran-Banua’ (men of the woods); the weapon they term _tomeang_. It is

known in Ceylon, in Silhet, and on both sides of the Bay of Bengal.

Condamine describes it among the Yameos (South American Indians);

Waterlow and Klemm, in New Guinea, and Markham among the Uapes and

other tribes on the Amazonas head-waters. In the New World it is of two

varieties: the long heavy zarabatana, and the thinner, slighter pucuna.

Finally, it has degraded to the ‘pea-shooter’ of modern Europe. The

principal feature of the weapon is the poisoned dart; it is therefore

unknown amongst tribes who, like the Andamanese, have not studied

toxics (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ p. 270, February 1882).

[43] See the _hamus ferreus_ pointed at both ends in Demmin (p. 124);

and the German _Fussängel_ (p. 465). The larger caltrop was called

_tribulus_, _stylus_ or _stilus_ (Veget. _De Re Mil._ iii. 24). The

knights of mediæval Europe planted their spurs rowels upwards to serve

the same purpose.

[44] ‘Make your hand perfect by a third attempt,’ said Timocrates in

Athenæus, i. cap. 4.

[45] ‘Hitherto,’ remarks Colonel A. Lane Fox, ‘Providence operates

directly on the work to be performed by means of the living animated

tool; henceforth it operates indirectly on the progress and development

of creation, first through the agency of the instinctively tool-using

savage, and, by degrees, of the intelligent and reasoning man.’

[46] J. F. Rowbotham: ‘Certain reasons for believing that the Art of

Music, in prehistoric times, passed through three distinct stages of

development, each characterised by the invention of a new form of

instrument; and that these stages succeeded one another in the same

order in various parts of the world’ (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ May

1881). The author states that the Veddahs (properly Vædiminissu, or

‘sportsmen’) of Ceylon, the Mincopis (Andamans), and the people of

Tierra del Fuego ‘have no musical instruments at all.’

[47] _Opuscula fidicularum_, &c. (London: Mitchell and Hughes).

[48] _Specus erant pro domibus._ Caverns appear to be divisible into

three classes: dwelling-places—including refuges, where, as Prometheus

says (i. 452), ‘Men lived like little ants beneath the ground in the

gloomy recesses of grots’—storehouses, and sepulchres. All were in

Lyell’s third phase. The first was when the rock began to form the

channel by dissolution; the second, when a regular river flowed; and

the third, when earth and air, instead of water, filled the bed.

[49] Aristotle Darwin holds (sorrow! that we should say ‘held’): ‘Our

male semi-human progenitors possessed great canine teeth,’ as is still

shown by a few exceptional individuals. Hence we derived the trick of

uncovering the eye-tooth when sneering or snarling at ‘Brother Man.’

[50] Quoted from Mr. Edward T. Stevens in _Flint Chips_; Col. A. Lane

Fox (_Catal._ p. 158).

[51] _History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands_,

which dates from 1792. The unfortunate ‘master-mariner’ (see my

_Wanderings in West Africa_, i. 116) borrows from the Spanish of

Abreu-Galindo. Mr. F. W. Newman (_Libyan Vocabulary_: Trübner, 1882)

has illustrated the four Libyan languages—the Algerian Kabáil (ancient

Numidian), the Moroccan Shilhá (Mauritanian), the Ghadamsi (of which we

know little), and the Tuárik (guides), or Tarkiya (Gætulian). ‘Guanche’

is a corruption of _guan_ (Berber _wan_), ‘one person,’ and _Chinet_,

or Tenerife Island; _guan-chinet_, meaning ‘a man of Tenerife.’ I have

returned to this subject in my last book on the Gold Coast (i. chap. 5).

[52] The word, also written ‘Hüttentüt,’ and originally Dutch, is

supposed to be an uncomplimentary imitation of the cluck-like or

smack-like ‘sonant,’ which characterises their complicated and

difficult language, and which has infected the neighbouring sections

of the great South African family of speech. The Hottentots had

already reached the pastoral stage when first visited by Europeans;

whereas the Bushmans then, as now, were huntsmen. Some derive the

Hottentot-Bushman ‘click’ from the Egyptian article T (á). But

Klaproth found it in Circassia, Whitmee amongst the Melanesian

Negritos, and Haldeman amongst certain North American tribes. Professor

Mahaffy notices that ‘old women among us express pity by a regular

palatal click.’ On the continent of Europe it expresses a kind of

‘Don’t-you-wish-you-may-get-it?’ Dr. Hahn, who has lately published a

scientific work upon the Khoi-Khoi, favourably reviewed by Professor

Max Müller in the _Nineteenth Century_, has treated the subject

exhaustively.

[53] I can bear personal witness to the prowess of the ruffians of

Nazareth, who call themselves, most falsely, Greeks. In 1871, when

encamped near the village, three of my servants were so severely

wounded with hand-stones that one was nearly killed.

[54] Prof. Maspero, of Bulak, told me that he had some doubts about

the correctness of Wilkinson’s illustration showing ‘ancient Egyptians

throwing knives.’

[55] The _facon_ (faulchion) is about two feet long. Both weapons are

thrown in two ways. The more common is to lay the blade flat on the

palm, which is narrowed by contracting the thumb and the _musculus

guinearum_ at the root of the little finger. The other is by holding

the handle and causing the dart to reverse, so as to strike point

foremost. The best guard is a revolver.

[56] _Critical Enquiry into Antient Armour_, &c., by Sir Samuel Rush

Meyrick, Kt., preface, p. viii. (4to, 1842).

[57] It is not, as usually supposed, a ‘bastard French word,’ from

_fustis_, a staff, and βάλλειν, to throw.

[58] Our ‘bow’ is the Gothic _bogo_ (a bender?), Scand. _bogi_,

Dan. _buc_, and Old Germ. _poko_. (Jähns, p. 18.) The ancients

made fine distinctions in slings: thus the three-thonged weapon of

Ægeum, Patræ, and Dymæ was held far superior to that of the Baleares

(‘Slinging-Isles’), which had only one strap (Livy, xxxviii. 30).

[59] Pliny, vii. 57. The legend points to the excellent archery of the

Scythians (Turanians) and the Persians.

[60] Even in modern days Dr. Woodward suggests that the first model of

flint arrow-heads was brought from Babel, and was preserved after the

dispersion of mankind. This is admirably archaic.

[61] The crossbow is apparently indigenous amongst various tribes of

Indo-China, but reintroduced into European warfare during the twelfth

century (Yule’s _Marco Polo_, ii. 143).

[62] The military engines of the ancients were chiefly on the torsion

principle; those of the mediævals were of two types, the sling and the

crossbow. The ‘tormentum’ was so called because all its parts were

twisted; the ‘scorpion’ (or catapult), because the bow was vertically

placed, like the insect’s raised tail; and the ‘onager,’ because the

‘wild asses, when hunted, throw the stones behind them by their kicks,

so as to pierce the chests of those who pursue them, or to fracture

them.’ So at least says A. Marcellinus (_Hist._ xxiii. 4). I cannot but

suspect that Anna Comnena’s τζάγρα is a corruption of _onager_ (Yule’s

_Marco Polo_, ii. 144).

[63] The National Museum of Prague, Old Graben Street, now Kolowrat,

contains a fine collection of war-flails, especially the huge ‘morning

star’ of John Zsizka, generally called Ziska.

[64] Mostly, not always, as I learnt to my cost.

[65] In a subsequent work (_Bronzes_, &c., pp. 27–30) Dr. Evans

discusses the suggestions of Beger and of Mr. Knight Watson (_Proc.

Soc. Ant._ 2nd S. vii. 396) that _celte_ in Job is a misreading for

_certe_. He justly reprobates the fashion of writing ‘Kelt,’ and

the newly-coined French plural _celtæ_. The truth is that not a few

antiquaries have confounded the instrument with the Keltic or Celtic

tribes. The word, meaning a stone axe, adze, or chisel, has been

erroneously derived from the Celts, properly Kelts, and by older

philologists _a cælando_, which would convert it into a congener of

_cælum_. It is the Latin _celtis_ or _celtes_, a chisel, possibly a

relative of the Welsh _cellt_, a flint. The word is found, according

to Mr. Evans, only in the Vulgate translation of Job, in Saint Jerome,

and in a forged inscription. He first met with its antiquarian use in

Beger’s _Thesaurus Brandenburgicus_ (1696), where a metal _securis_

(axe) is called _celtes_.

[66] In 1650 Sir William Dugdale (_Hist. of Warwickshire_) spoke of

stone celts as the weapons of the Ancient Britons, and in 1766 he was

followed by Bishop Lyttelton. In 1797 Mr. Frere drew the attention

of the Society of Antiquaries to the Drift (palæolithic) instruments

occurring at Hoxne, Suffolk, together with remains of the elephant

and other extinct animals. He was one of several; but, as usually

happens, the wit of one man collected and systematised the scattered

experience of many. The man was M. Boucher de Perthes, whose finds in

the drift-gravels of St. Acheul, near Amiens (1858), appeared in the

_Antiquités Celtiques et Anté-diluviennes_, and made an epoch, changing

the accepted chronology of mankind.

[67] The stone-weapon was also called _betulus_, _belemnites_, and

_ceraunius_ (thunder-stone), _ceraunium_ and _ceraunia_. So Claudian

(_Laus Serenæ_, v. 77)—

Pyrenæisque sub antris

Ignea flumineæ legere ceraunia nymphæ.

‘Fuerunt auctores’ (says Aldovrandus) ‘qui hunc lapidem ceraunium,

nempe fulminarem, indigitaverunt.’ According to Skulius Thorlacius,

the stone-axe typified the splitting; the hammer, the shattering; and

the arrow, the piercing, action of the bolt (Om Thor og hans Hammer).

People carried these belemnites about their persons, because lightning

was supposed never to strike twice in the same place.

[68] According to Suetonius, the Roman Cæsar presided over the senate

with a Sword by his side and a mail-coat under his tunic.

[69] _De Rer. Nat._ v. 1282. He speaks of Italy, where copper and

bronze historically preceded iron.

[70] _Sat._ i. 3.

[71] Leading to the fourth, or Historic, and the fifth, or Gunpowder,

age of weapons. In these ‘ages’ we have a fine instance of hasty

and indiscriminate generalisation. They originated in Scandinavia,

where Stone was used almost exclusively from the beginning of man’s

occupation till B.C. 2000–1000. At that time the Bronze began, and

ended with the Iron about the Christian era. Thomsen, who classified

the Copenhagen Museum in 1836; Nilsson, the Swede, who founded

comparative anthropology (1838–43); Forchhammer and Worsäae, the Dane,

who illustrated the Bronze Age (1845), fairly established the local

sequence. It was accepted by F. Keller, of the Zurich Lake (1853), by

Count Gozzadini, of Bologna (1854), by Lyell (1863), and by Professor

Max Müller (1863, 1868, and 1873), who seems to have followed the

Swiss studies of M. Morlot (_Bulletin de la Soc. Vaudoise_, tome vi.

etc.) Unhappily, the useful order was applied to the whole world, when

its deficiency became prominent and palpable. I note that Mr. Joseph

Anderson (_Scotland in Early Christian Times_, p. 19) retains the

‘three stages of progress’—stone, bronze, and iron. Brugsch (_History_,

i. 25) petulantly rejects them, declaring that Egypt ‘throws scorn

upon these assumed periods,’ the reverse being the case. Mr. John

Evans (_The Ancient Stone Implements, &c., of Great Britain_, p. 2)

adopts the succession-idea, warning us that the classification does not

imply any exact chronology. He finds Biblical grounds ‘in favour of

such a view of gradual development of material civilisation.’ Adam’s

personal equipment in the way of tools or weapons would have been but

insufficient, if no artificer was instructed in brass and iron until

the days of Tubal Cain, the sixth in descent when a generation covered

a hundred years. Mr. Evans divides the Stone Age into four periods.

First, the Palæolithic, River-gravel, or Drift, when only chipping

was used; second, the Reindeer, or Cavern-epoch of Central France,

and an intermediate age, when surface-chipping is found; third, the

Neolithic, or surface stone-period of Western Europe, in which grinding

was practised; and, lastly, the Metallo-lithic age, which attained the

highest degree of manual skill.

[72] In Denmark the division is marked even by the vegetation. The

Stone Age lies buried under the fir-trees; the oak-stratum conceals the

Bronzes, and the Iron Age is covered by birch and elders (Jähns, p. 2).

[73] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, ii. 208.

[74] Servius, ad _Æneid._ ii. 44, ‘Sic notus Ulysses.’

[75] Col. A. Lane Fox (_Prim. War._, p. 24) notices the bone implements

of the French caves and their resemblance, amounting almost to

identity, with those found in Sweden, among the Eskimos, and the

savages of Tierra del Fuego.

[76] _Mittheilungen der Wien. Anthrop. Gesellschaft._ Vienna, 1874.

[77] _Pfahlbau_ (_pfahl_ = _palus_) was originally applied to the

pile-villages of the Swiss waters (_The Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland_,

by Dr. Ferdinand Keller).

[78] Wilkinson opines that the Egyptian Khons or Khonsu, the new moon

of the year which appeared at the autumnal equinox when the ‘world was

made,’ becomes the Biblical Sem, and that ‘Sampson’ is Sem-Kon, or

Sun-fire. Jablonski (_Pantheon Egyptiorum_) supported the theory that

Son, Sem, Con, Khons, or Djom was the god or genius of the summer sun.

[79] _Travels into Indo-China_, &c. ii. 147, by Henri Mouhot, 1858–59.

[80] ‘Pile,’ applied to the arrow-head (as ‘quarrel’ to the bolt of

the crossbow), is a congener of the German _pfeil_, an arrow. The

Scandinavian is _pila_, the Anglo-Saxon _pil_, apparently a congener of

the Latin _pilum_.

[81] _Ulster Journal of Archæology_ for 1857.

[82] The Dacota tribe is said still to ‘doctor’ the bullet by filling

with venom four drilled holes, which are covered by pressing down the

projecting lips or rims of the metal. Unfortunately, travellers tell us

that the venom is the cuticle of the cactus, which is quite harmless.

The Papuans tip their arrows with a human bone, which is poisoned

by being thrust into a putrid corpse. Hence, they say, Commodore

Goodenough met his death.

[83] P. 258, _Descriptive Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Royal

Irish Academy_, by the late (Sir) William R. Wilde. The Greeks, from

the days of Homer, followed by the Romans, considered the use of

poisoned arrows a characteristic of the barbarian.

[84] The learned author adds, ‘thus confirming the opinion (deduced

from the size of the hafts of our bronze Swords) that the hands of the

race who used them were very small.’ I can hardly agree with him, and

will give reasons in a future page.

[85] Wilde writes: ‘_Sceana_, which is the plural of _scjan_, a knife,’

the Scotch _sgian-dhu_, or _skene_ (Rev. Paul O’Brien’s _Practical

Grammar and Vocabulary of the Irish Language_, Dublin: Fitzpatrick,

1809).’

[86] It is better to write Crannog, lest the word be pronounced

‘crannoje.’ It derives from the Irish _crann_ (a tree, e.g. _crann ola_

= an olive-tree), and properly means a platform or plank-floor.

[87] Pliny, the grumbler, complains (xxxiii. 54): ‘Our very soldiers,

holding even ivory in contempt, have their _capuli_ (sword-hilts)

inlaid or chased (_cælentur_) with silver; their _vaginæ_ (scabbards)

are heard to jingle with their silver _catellæ_ (chains), and their

belts with the plates of silver (_baltea laminis crepitant_) that

inlay them.’ It will be seen that Divus Cæsar had juster and more

soldier-like views. Scipio the younger, when shown a fine shield by a

youth, said: ‘It is really beautiful; but a soldier should rely more on

his right arm than on his left arm.’

[88] Of Lund, Sweden. _The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia_, &c.,

translated by Sir John Lubbock. Nilsson is quoted and illustrated by

Col. A. Lane Fox (_Prim. War._ p. 135), and by Wilde (p. 254) from the

_Scandinaviska Nordens Ur-Invanare_, 1843.

[89] Chapter III.

[90] A commentator volunteers the information that the bow was tipped

with ram’s-horn. Nor is there any need to translate ‘goat’ by _ibex_.

[91] Pemberton, _Travels_.

[92] Hakluyt’s edit., p. 43. The index to this publication is very

defective: one must look through the whole volume for a line of

quotation. I shall again notice it in the next chapter.

[93] Wilkinson (Sir J. Gardner), _A Popular Account of the Ancient

Egyptians_, i. chap. 5, mentions only tips of hard wood, flint, and

metals.

[94] The _Roteiro_ or _Ruttier_ of the _Voyage of Vasco da Gama_ (p. 5,

Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional) speaks of tribes about the Cape of Good Hope

armed with horn-weapons ‘worked by fire’ (_huuns cornos tostados_). I

should suggest that ‘_cornos_’ is an error for _páos_ (wooden staves).

[95] The khanjar proper is shaped like a yataghan, of which more

presently.

[96] I avoid treating of armour in a book devoted to the Sword; but

the Horn Age compels me to show, in a few words, how that material,

combined with hoofs, gave rise to scale armour. Pausanias, confirmed

by Tacitus, informs us that the Sarmatians (Slavs) prepared the

horse-hoofs of their large herds and sewed them with nerves and

sinews to overlap like the surface of a fir-cone. He adds that this

lorica was not inferior in strength or in elegance to the metal-work

of the Greeks. The Emperor Domitian wore a corslet of boars’-hoofs

stitched together; and a fragment of such horn-armour was found at

Pompeii. Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Sarmatians and the Quadi as

protected by loricas of horn-flakes planed, polished, and fastened like

feathers upon a linen sheet. A defence composed of the hoofs of some

animal, made to hold together without the aid of an inner jerkin, and

used in some parts of Asia, is represented in Meyrick (plate iii.). A

stone figure of old type similarly defended, and bearing an inscription

in a dialect cognate with Greek, appears in vol. iii. _Journ. Archæol.

Assoc._ Herodotus (vii. 76) tells us of a people, whose name has

disappeared, that, in addition to their brazen helmets, they wore the

ears and horns of an ox in brass. This horn-helmet shows the savage

practice of defending the head with the skins of beasts and their

appendages.

[97] The _Pfahlbauten im Laibacher Moraste_ were first noticed in the

_Neue Freie Presse_, August 27, 1875; secondly, by the _Neue Deutsche

Alpenzeitung_, of Vienna, Sept. 4, 1875; thirdly, by Herr Custos

Deschmann (to whom the discovery is attributed) in his paper _Die

Pfahlbauten auf dem Laibacher Moore_ (Verhand. der Wiener K. K. Geolog.

Reichsanstalt, Nov. 16, 1875); and, fourthly, by Carl Freiherr von

Czoernig, whose study (_Ueber die Vorhistorischen Funde im Laibacher

Torfmoor_) was read at the Alpine Society of Trieste on December 8,

1875. Between that time and 1880 the subject has been illustrated by

many writers. The course of discovery also has been ‘forwards;’ and the

whole moor was about to be drained in 1881.

[98] Perhaps this may explain the ‘pierced implements of unknown use’

found with harpoon-heads of reindeer-horn in a cavern near Bruniguel,

France. Two picks made of reindeer-antlers were produced by the ‘Grimes

Graves,’ Westing Parish, Norfolk.

[99] The animal remains were of bears, wolves, lynxes, beavers, badgers

(probably the cave-species), hogs, goats, sheep (differing in the

jaw-bone from _ovis_), dogs (common, and not eaten), and cattle with

small teeth like those of the aurochs. The bird-bones resembled those

of the common duck. Man was rare, suggesting that the pile-villagers

buried on the adjacent slopes; the only human ‘find’ was an inferior

maxilla with teeth much worn.

[100] The word _paalstab_, _palstab_, or _palstave_ is usually

translated ‘labouring-staff,’ from _at pula_ or _pala_, to labour,

_labourer_. Dr. John Evans (_Bronzes_, &c., p. 72) prefers

‘spade-staff,’ the verb being _at pæla_, to dig, and the noun _pall_,

a spade, spud, shovel; the Latin _pala_, the French _pelle_, and our

(baker’s) _peel_, or wooden shovel. He confines the term ‘pal-stave’

to two forms; the first is the winged celt with the lateral extensions

hammered to make a socket; the second is the spud-shaped form, with a

thinner blade above than below the side-flanges.

[101] M. Kugelmann, of Hamburg—a wholesale merchant, who kindly showed

me his warehouse—prefers the horns of the North American and Japanese

stag, especially when buttons are to be made of the crown.

[102] _Reports on the Discovery of Peru_, by Clements R. Markham, C.B.,

p. 53 (London: Hakluyt Soc. 1872).

[103] Oldfield’s ‘Aborigines of Australia’ (_Trans. Eth. Soc._). The

author was employed (1861) in collecting specimens of timber for the

International Exhibition.

[104] Commissioner for Victoria at the Geographical Congress of Venice,

September 1881.

[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.

[115] _Trans. Irish Assoc._ vol. xix. The Romans also called it _aclys_

(_Æn._ vii. 730), which the dictionaries render as a ‘kind of dart.’

It was an archaic and barbarian weapon; and Virgil (_Æn._ vii. 730)

attributes it to the Osci:—

Teretes sunt aclydes illis

Tela: sed hæc lento mos est aptare flagello.

This would mean that after the weapon is thrown it might be drawn back

again with a leather thong. Possibly the _cateia_ of Isidore (_cateia_,

to cut or mangle, and _catan_, to fight; the Irish caꞇ̇ and the Welsh

_kad_, a fight or a corps of fighters, Latin _caterva_), survives in

the tip-_cat_. In the Keltic dialect of Wales _catai_ is a weapon.

[116] See his learned note (p. 410) on the weapon and on Isidore

(_Orig._ xviii. 7): ‘Hæc est cateia quam Horatius cajam dicit.’ The

disputed word probably derives from the Keltic _katten_, to cast, to

throw.

[117] _Nile Tributaries_, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, p. 51. The word has a

curious likeness to the ‘tombat,’ a similar weapon in Australia (Col. A

Lane-Fox, _Anthrop. Coll._ p. 31).

[118] The ‘Fans’ of M. du Chaillu, a corruption unfortunately adopted

by popular works. In _Gorilla-Land_ (i. 207) I have noticed the

Náyin, or Mpangwe crossbow (with poisoned _ebe_, or dwarf bolt),

which probably travelled up-Nile like the throw-stick. The _détente_

and method of releasing the string from its notch are those of the

toy forms of the European weapon. The Museum at Scarborough contains

a crossbow from the Bight of Benin. The people of Bornu (North-West

Africa) also use a crossbow rat-trap.

[119] It is called _chakarani_ in the _Coasts of East Africa and

Malabar Coast_, by Duarte Barbosa or Magellan (?). The Jibba negroes of

Central Africa wear a similar weapon as a bracelet, sheathed in a strip

of hide.

[120] Col. A. Lane-Fox, _Anthrop. Coll._, p. 33. For a comparative

anatomy of the boomerang the reader will consult that volume, pp.

28–61. I have here noticed only the most remarkable points.

[121] The Sword stood in Case 2 of the Salle du Centre, numbered 695;

and was described in p. 225 of the late Mariette Pasha’s catalogue.

I cannot quite free myself from a suspicion that it was also a

boomerang of unusual size. Some of the South African tribes still use

throw-sticks a yard to a yard and a half long. ‘They are double as

thick at one end as they are at the other,’ says Herr Holub (ii. 340),

‘the lighter extremity being in the usual way about as thick as one’s

finger.’

[122] This meaningless word (_cartuccia_, a scrap of paper) was

applied by Champollion to the elliptical oval containing a group of

hieroglyphics. It is simply an Egyptian shield (Wilkinson, _loc. cit._

i. chap. 5), and the horizontal line below shows the ground upon which

it rested. The old Nile-dwellers, like the classics of Europe and

the modern Chinese, use the shield for their characteristics, their

heraldic badges, &c. The same was the case with our formal heraldry,

which originated about the time of the Crusades, personal symbolism

being its base. As Mr. Hardwick shows, the horse, raven, and dragon

were old familiar badges; many of our sheep-marks are identical with

‘ordinaries,’ and the tribes of Australia used signs to serve as

_kobongs_, or crests. Thus, too, in fortification the shield became

the crenelle and the battlement, and it served to ‘iron-clad’ the

war-galleys of the piratical Norsemen.

[123] So there are two ways of swimming. The civilised man imitates

the action of the frog, the savage the dog, throwing out the arms and

drawing the hands towards his chest.

[124] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._ vol. iii. pp. 7–29, April, 1873.

[125] An illustration is given in Mr. J. G. Wood’s _Natural History of

Man_. He also quotes Mr. F. Baines, who describes the paddles of the

North Australians with barbed and pointed looms.

[126] Capt. James Mackenzie, in a paper read before the Ethno. Soc. by

Mr. G. M. Atkinson (_Journal_, vol. ii. No. 2, of July 18, 1870. The

paddle is figured pl. xiv. 2).

[127] Translated for the Hakluyt Society (1874) by Mr. Albert Tootal,

of Rio de Janeiro, who wisely preserved the plain and simple style of

the unlettered and superstition-haunted gunner.

[128] In Bacon’s day (_Aphorisms_, book ii.) gummy woods were supposed

to be rather a Northern growth, ‘more pitchy and resinous than in warm

climates, as the fir, pine, and the like.’ They are as abundant near

the Equator, where the viscidity preserves them from the alternate

action of burning suns and torrential rains; moreover, they are harder

and heavier than the pines and firs of the Temperates.

[129] _Historia Geral do Brazil_, by F. Adolpho de Varnhagen, vol. i.

p. 112 (Laemmert, Rio de Janeiro, 1854).

[130] M. Paul Bataillard (p. 409, _Sur le Mot Pagaie_, Soc. Anthrop.

de Paris, 1874) is in error, both when he calls the people of Paraguay

‘Pagayas,’ or ‘carriers of lances,’ and when he identifies Pagaya

(not a spear, but a paddle-sword) with the ‘sagaia or assagai.’ The

latter word is of disputed origin, and it is meaningless in the

tongues of South Africa. Space forbids me to touch its history, except

superficially. ‘Azagay,’ a lance, or rather javelin, appears in

Spanish history as far back as the days of Ojeda (1509); and in 1497

the Portuguese of Vasco da Gama’s expedition use the term ‘azagayas’

(p. 12, Roteiro or Ruttier, before alluded to). I believe both to

be derived from the Arabic _el-khazúk_, a spit—in fact, the Italian

_spiedo_, lance.

[131] Markham (p. 203, Cieça de Leon) makes ‘Macaná’ a Quichua word; it

also belongs to the great Tupi-Guarani family.

[132] _Antiquarian Researches_, quoted by Markham, _loc. cit._ p. 181.

[133] The Godeffroy Collection has produced a huge Catalogue of 687

pages (_Die ethnographisch-anthropologische Abtheilung des Museum

Godeffroy in Hamburg_, vol. i. 8vo (L. Friederichsen u. Co. 1881).

It was shown to me by Dr. Graeffe, the naturalist often mentioned

in ‘_South Sea Bubbles_, by the Earl and the Doctor.’ As a rule the

Samoans had clubs and spears, but few Swords.

[134] This part of Melanesia has been familiar to the home reader by

the life, labours, and death of Bishop Patterson.

[135] Case 21, Petrie, No. 142.

[136] The village of Abu Rawásh, north of the Pyramids of Jízah, still

works this material in large quantities; and its _caillouteurs_, or

flint-knappers, have produced excellent imitations of the so-called

prehistoric weapons. I have described the flint finds of Egypt in the

_Journ. Anthrop. Instit._ (Feb. 1879), and shall have something more to

say about them. A Mr. R. P. Greg, who writes in the same Journal (May

1881) on the ‘Flint Implements of the Nile Valley,’ is not aware of

the fact that I found worked flints near the larger petrified forest

(Cairo). Since that time General Pitt-Rivers made his grand discovery

of ‘Chert Implements in stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley’ (_Journ.

Anthrop. Inst._ May 1882). In March 1881, when visiting the Wady,

near Elwat El-Díbán (Hill of Flies) amongst the cliffs of Thebes, he

came upon palæolithic flints, flakes worked with bulbs and facets

embedded in the hardened grit, six and a half to ten feet below the

surface. In the same strata tombs had been cut, flat-topped chambers

with quadrangular pillars. The fragments of pottery enabled Dr.

Birch to pronounce these excavations ‘not later than the eighteenth

dynasty, and perhaps earlier.’ The New Empire in question was founded

by Amosis (_Mah-mes_, or Moon-child) _circ._ B.C. 1700; it included

the three great Tothmes, and lasted about three hundred years, ending

with the heretic Amun-hotep IV., slave of Amun, _circ._ B.C. 1400,

and Horemhib, the Horus of Manetho. The worked flints may evidently

date thousands of years before that period. This is a discovery of the

highest importance, and we may expect, with Mr. Campbell, that the

‘works of men’s hands will be found abundantly underlying the oldest

history in the world, in the hard gravel which underlies the mud of the

Nile-hollow from Cairo to Assouan.’ At any rate, this find disposes

of the scientific paradox that Art has no infancy in Nile-land. The

strange fancy has been made popular by the Egyptologist, who threatens

to become as troublesome as the Sanskritist.

[137] It is figured (p. 8) by Dr. John Evans (_Ancient Stone

Implements_, &c.), who offers another ‘poniard’ (perhaps a scraper) on

p. 292. On p. 308 he notes the large thin flat heads called ‘Pechs’’

(Picts’?) knives.’

[138] Nephrite is so called because once held a sovereign cure for

kidney disease. Jade is found in various parts of Europe (Page); in the

Hartz (or Resin) Mountains; in Corsica (Bristowe), and about Schweinsal

and Potsdam (Rudler). Saussurite, the ‘Jade of the Alps,’ appears about

the Lake of Geneva and on Monte Rosa. Mr. Dawkins limits Jade proper

in the Old World to Turkestan and China. _Jade_, the Chinese _you_, is

popularly derived from the Persian _jádú_ = (the) magic (stone).

[139] I need hardly notice that the mussel-shell was the original

spoon, still a favourite with savages.

[140] Humboldt (_Pers. Narr._ vol. i. p. 100) makes the Guanches call

obsidian ‘tabona’; most authors apply the word to the Guanche knife of

obsidian.

[141] Neuhoff, _Travels_, &c. xiv. 874.

[142] Our word ‘glass’ derives from _glese_ (_gless_, _glessaria_),

applied by the old Germans to amber (Tacit. _De Mor. Germ._ cap. 45).

Pliny (xxxvii. chap. 11) also notices _glæsum_ (amber) and Glæsaria

Island, by the natives called Austeravia.

[143] Stephens, _Yucatan_, i. 100.

[144] The curious and artistic rock inscriptions and engravings of the

South African Bushmen were traced in outline by triangular flint-flakes

mounted on sticks to act as chisels. The subjects were either simple

figures; cows, gnus, and antelopes, a man’s bust and a woman carrying

a load; or compositions, as ostrich and rider, a jackal chasing a

gazelle, or a rhinoceros hunting an ostrich.

[145] See Chap. I.

[146] _Voyage Pittoresque autour du Monde_, par M. Louis Choris,

Peintre, 1822.

[147] _Trans. Ethno. Soc._ vols. i. and ii. p. 290.

[148] Quoted by Col. Lane Fox, _Prim. War._ i. 25.

[149] _Prehistoric Man_, by Daniel Wilson (vol. i. pp. 216–17).

[150] _Incidents of Travel in Central America_, &c., p. 51; by J. Lloyd

Stephens. The work is highly interesting, because it shows Egypt in

Central America. Compare the Copan Pyramid with that of Sakkarah; the

Cynocephalus head (i. 135) with those of Thebes; the beard, a tuft on

the chin; the statue and its headdress (ii. 349); the geese-breeding

at the palace (ii. 316); the central cross (ii. 346) which denotes

the position of the solstices and the equinoxes and the winged globe

at Ocosingo (ii. 259). In Yucatan the _Agave Americana_ took the

place of the papyrus for paper-making. Indo-China also appears in the

elephant-trunk ornaments (i. 156).

[151] _Prim. War._ ii. p. 25.

[152] The two latter are in Demmin, p. 84.

[153] A specimen is in the British Museum, Department of Meteorolites.

(_Prim. War._ p. 25.)

[154] The distinguished physicist, Prof. Huxley, extends on purely

anthropological grounds, the name ‘Australioids’ to the Dravidians of

India, the Egyptians, ancient and modern, and the dark-coloured races

of Southern Europe. I have ventured to oppose this theory in Chap.

VIII. Mr. Thomas, curious to say, would make letters (alphabet, &c.)

arise amongst the Dravidian quasi-savages.

[155] _Trans. Anthrop. Inst._ May 1881. Mr. Milne brought home some

fine specimens of worked stones, one of which (No. 17, pl. xviii.) is a

chopper in the shape of the Egyptian flint-knives.

[156] Mr. Heath (who directed the Indian Iron and Steel Company) opined

that the tools with which the Egyptians engraved hieroglyphics on

syenite and porphyry were made of Indian steel. The theory is, as we

shall see, quite uncalled for.

[157] For instance, the magnificent life-sized statue of Khafra

(Cephren or Khabryes) in the Bulak Museum, dated B.C. 3700–3300

(Brugsch, _History_, vol. i. p. 78). Scarabæi of diorite can be safely

bought in Egypt, the substance being too hard for cheap imitation

work. Dr. Henry Schliemann constantly mentions diorite in his _Troy

and its Remains_ (1875); for instance, ‘wedges’ (i.e. axes) large and

small, (pp. 21, 28, 154): he speaks of an immense quantity of diorite

implements (p. 75); of a Priapus of diorite twelve inches high (p.

169); of ‘curious little sling bullets’ (p. 236), and of hammers (p.

285). At Mycenæ he found ‘two well-polished axes of diorite.’ But as

he also calls it ‘hard black stone,’ I suspect it to be basalt, as his

‘green stone’ (_Troy_, p. 21) may be jade or jadeite.

[158] Casting the cannon called after the late General Uchatius is

still kept a secret; and I have been unable to see the process at the

I. R. Arsenal, Vienna.

[159] _Stahl-bronce_ = steel (i.e. hardened) bronze. The

misunderstanding caused some ludicrous errors to the English press.

[160] I reported to the _Athenæum_ (August 16, 1879) this ‘recovery’

of the lost Egyptian (and Peruvian) secret for tempering copper and

bronze, which had long been denied by metallurgists. Copper hardened

by alloy is described in the _Archæologia_, by Governor Pownall. Mr.

Assay-Master Alchorn found in it particles of iron, which may, however,

have been in the ore, and some admixture of zinc, but neither silver

nor gold.

[161] Of this I shall have more to say in Chap. V.

[162] This was the weight of the statue of ‘Sesostris,’ Ramses II.,

and his father Pharaoh Seti I.; see Chap. IX. The overseer standing

upon its knee appears about two-thirds the length of the lower leg

(Wilkinson, Frontisp. vol. ii.). Pliny treats of colossal statues,

xxxiv. 18.

[163] _Les Métaux dans l’Antiquité_, par J. P. Rossignol. Paris:

Durand, 1863.

[164] So Professor F. Max Müller, _Lectures on the Science of

Language_, asserted, with a carelessness rare in so learned a writer

(vol. ii. p. 255. London: Longmans, 1873), that ‘the ancients knew

a process of hardening that pliant metal (copper), most likely by

repeated smelting (heating?) and immersion in water.’ This latter is

the common process for _softening_ the metal.

[165] Cieza de Leon (Introd. p. xxviii.): ‘Humboldt mentions a cutting

instrument found near Cuzco (‘_the_ City’) which was composed of 0·94

parts of copper and 0·06 of tin. The latter metal is scarcely ever

found in South America, but I believe there are traces of it in parts

of Bolivia. In some of the instruments silica was substituted for tin.’

The South American tin is mostly impure; still it was and can be used.

[166] Apparently there are two forms of ‘Núb’ (gold), the necklace and

the washing-bowl. See Chapter VIII.

[167] Pliny, xxxvi. 65.

[168] Here Elton, like others of his age, mistranslates Chalcos by

‘brass’:

Their mansions, implements, and armour shine

In brass,—dark iron slept within the mine.

[169] Engraving on copper-plates is popularly attributed to Maso

Finiguerra, of Florence, in 1460; but the Romans engraved maps and

plans, and the ancient Hindus grants, deeds, &c. on copper-plates.

[170] I regret the necessity of troubling the learned reader with these

stock quotations, but they are essential to the symmetry and uniformity

of the subject.

[171] Sophocles and Ovid make Medea, and Virgil makes Elissa, use a

sickle of chalcos. Homer, as will be seen, uses the same material

for his arms, axes, and adzes. Pausanias follows him, quoting his

description of Pisander’s axe and Meriones’ arrow; he also cites

Achilles’ spear in the temple of Athene at Phaselis, with its point

and ferrule of chalcos, and the similar sword of Memnon in the temple

of Æsculapius at Nicomedia. Plutarch tells us that the sword and

spear-head of Theseus, disinterred by Cymon in Scyros, were of copper.

Empedocles, who (B.C. 444)—

ardentem frigidus Ætnam

Insiluit—

was betrayed by his sandal shoon with chalcos soles.

[172] See Macrob. _Sat._ vi. 3.

[173] Or ‘a furbisher (whetter, sharpener = _acuens_) of every cutting

tool of copper and iron.’ See Chap. IX.

[174] I can hardly understand why Dr. Evans (p. 5) insists upon these

sockets being bronze, as they could ‘hardly have been done from a metal

so difficult to cast as unalloyed copper.’ He greatly undervalues

the metallurgy of the Exodist Hebrews, who would have borrowed their

science from Egypt.

[175] Lead is also mentioned, but not tin.

[176] A certain Herr Dromir patented in Germany a process for making

malleable bronze. He added one per cent. of mercury to the tin, and

then mixed it with the molten copper.

[177] For Irish copper swords see the _Archéologie_, vol. iii. p. 555.

They will be exhaustively described in Part II.

[178] So Chalcis in Mela (ii. 7), now Egripos (Negroponte).

[179] The confusion with iron appears in the Sanskrit (Pali?) _ayas_;

Latin _æs_ for _ahes_ (as we find in _aheneus_); the Persian _áhan_

(آهن); the Gothic _ais_, or _aiz_; the High German _er_ (which is the

Assyrian _eru_ and the Akkadian _hurud_), and the English _iron_. J.

Grimm (_Die Naturvölker_) connects Ἄρης with _æs_. That _æs_ and _æris

metalla_ in Pliny mean copper, we learn from his tale of Telephus (xxv.

19), which, by the by, is told by Camoens (Sonnet lxix.) in a very

different way.

[180] χαλκεύειν δὲ καὶ τὸ σίδηρεύειν ἔλγον, καὶ χαλκέας τοὺς τὸν

σίδηρον ἐργαζομένους. Jul. Pollux, _Onomasticon_, viii. c. 10.

[181] The full term was _æs cyprium_, which Pliny apparently applies

to the finer kind; then it became _cyprium_, the adjective, which

expressed only locality; and lastly _cuprum_. The third is first used

by Spartianus in the biography of Caracalla (No. 5), _Cancelli ex ære

vel cupro_ (doors of _æs_ or copper). Ælius Spartianus dates from the

days of Diocletian and Constantine (Smith, _sub voc._). When Pliny

writes _in Cypro prima fuit æris inventio_, he leaves it doubtful if

_æs_ be copper or bronze; but we should prefer the former. So he makes

the best ‘Missy’ (native yellow copperas) proceed from the Cyprus

manufactories (xxxiii., iv. 25, and xxxiv., xii. 31). The word _misí_

or _missí_ is still used in India for a vitriolic powder to stain the

teeth. Cypros, the wife of Agrippa, was possibly named from Kafar =

the henna plant: the Cyprus of Pliny (xii. 51) is also the _Lawsonia

inermis_.

[182] _Frag._ tom. i. p. 226. Edit. Bipont.

[183] The island will be further noticed in Chap. VIII.

[184] _Cyprus_, &c., by General Louis Palma (di Cesnola). London:

Murray, 1877. The author excavated from 1866 to 1876, and opened some

15,000 tombs, mostly Phœnician.

[185] Quoted in the _Kypros_ of W. H. Engel (vol. i. p. 14). The two

volumes are a mine of information; much of it now antiquated, but

useful to later students who have less leisure to accumulate learning.

[186] ‘In Cyprus, where the manufacturers of the stone called chalcitis

(copper-smelters) burn it for many days in fire, a winged creature,

something larger than a great fly, is seen walking and leaping in the

fire.’ A brother of the salamander!

[187] Some commentators (Strabo, vi. 1) confound this place with

Ausonian Temĕsa, or Tempsa, in the land of the Brutii, with Temése of

Cyprus.

[188] Herodotus (iii. 23) tells us that, copper being of all metals

the most scarce and valuable in Æthiopia, prisoners were there bound

with golden fetters. As will be seen, copper has lately been found in

Abyssinia.

[189] An awful list of his works is given in Diogenes Laertius.

[190] This ærugo was artificially made by the Ancients with acetic

acid, converting copper to a green salt (Beckmann, _sub v._ ‘Verdigris

or Spanish Green’). The green rust of the carbonate of copper is still

erroneously termed verdigris (acetate of copper).

[191] Ample information is given by Brugsch (_Egypt under the

Pharaohs_, vol. i. p. 64) of Senoferu; of the valiant Khufu or Suphis

(Cheops); of the Pharaoh Sahura, or Sephris; of Menkauhor (Mencheres)

and Tat-ka-ra (Fifth Dynasty); of the bas-reliefs at Wady Magharah

dating from King Pepi (Sixth Dynasty); of Thut-mes III. or the Great,

and his sister Hashop (Eighteenth Dynasty before B.C. 1600), one of

whose expeditions produced among other things ninety-seven Swords

(Brugsch, i. 327), and who mentions ‘gilt copper’; of Amon-hotep III.,

also ‘the Great’ (Eighteenth Dynasty, about B.C. 1500); and of other

Pharaohs who worked these diggings.

[192] Pottery has lately been found embedded in the bricks of the

Maydúm Pyramid.

[193] The Souphis I. of Manetho is the second king of the Fourth

Dynasty following Soris. Souphis II. is the Khafra of the Tables and

the Cephren of the Greeks.

[194] The hieroglyphic is of several forms;

[Hieroglyphs]

may serve as a specimen.

[195] ‘Malachite’ is the Greek _molochotis_, from the molokhe, or

marsh-mallow; whence the Arabic _mulukhíyeh_. In Poland, malachite and

turquoise preside over the month of December.

[196] Meaning the Beloved of Ptah, the Opener, the Artificer God. The

word is found in the Arabic _fath_. It is a better derivation for

_Hephæstus_ than ‘Vaishravana’; but Sanskrit is so copious that any

given word can be derived from it.

[197] _O Muata Cazembe_, by Monteiro and Gamitto, describes the copper

works in South-East Africa long known to the natives. I am told by Mr.

Hooker, C.E., that he has lately seen (_pace_ Herodotus) ‘magnificent

specimens of native copper sent from Abyssinia.’

[198] R.N., C.B., &c., _Across Africa_, vol. i. pp. 134, 319; and vol.

ii. pp. 149, 329.

[199] _Viagens dos Portuguezes, Colecção de Documentos_, &c.

[200] Layard’s _Nineveh_, i. 224, ii. 415; 6th edit. 1854.

[201] Hence our _packfong_, or German silver, of China, an alloy of

copper (50 per cent.), nickel, and zinc (25 per cent. each).

[202] The _Chinese Repository_ gives a hundred illustrations of the

implements in use by the Chinese and the Japanese.

[203] _Fir_ or _fear_ (_vir_, a man), and _bolg_ (_Bolgi_, _Belgæ_),

a belly, bag, budget, or quiver. They occupied Southern Britain, and

formed the third immigrant colony preceding the ‘Milesians,’ sons of

Milidh or Miledh (Senchus Mor), evidently _Miles_, the soldier. He had

two sons, Emer and Airem, from whom the Irish race is descended. Emer,

says Prof. Rhys, may represent the Ivernii or pre-Celtic population

mentioned by Ptolemy; and Airem, which means ‘a farmer,’ the Iranian

race which introduced agriculture amongst a horde of hunters. The

fourth colony was the Tuatha (people, e.g. Tuatha-Eireann = people of

Erin), named from Danair, a stranger, foreigner, and properly a Dane.

We have lately been shown how much true history may be obtained from

these names, which had become bye-words, almost ridiculous to use.

[204] _Bán_ (our corrupted ‘bawn,’ as in ‘Molly Bawn’), white, is the

Latin _canus_. It is also a noun substantive, meaning ‘copper.’

[205] Wilde, _Catalogue_, pp. 58, 356.

[206] Meaning _Tectetan_ = ‘I don’t know.’ So the _M’adri_ on an old

English chart of the Euphrates.

[207] _Select Letters of Columbus_, &c. p. 201. Translated by R. H.

Major, Hakluyt Society, 1870.

[208] Humboldt, _Travels_, iii. 194.

[209] _Commentaries of the Yncas._ Translated by Clements R. Markham,

C.B. Hakluyt Society, 1871.

[210] Daniel Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, vol. i. chap. viii.; _The

Metallurgic Arts, Copper_ (pp. 231–79). Prof. Brush, of Yale College,

calculated that 6,000 tons were yielded in 1858.

[211] R.E., _Spanish America_, &c. (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1819),

p. 49.

[212] It was divided, like the Greek and Roman, into centuries

(_pachacas_), chiliarchies (_hurangos_), and inspectorships

(_tokrikrok_), generally under royalties. The organisation was due

to the Ynka Inti-Kapak (the Great), B.C. 1500–1600. There was a

large fleet (‘magna colcharum classis’) of ships not smaller than

the contemporary European, ‘navigiis velificantur nihili vestris

minoribus,’ says P. Martyr (_Decad._ ii. lib. 3). Neither traveller nor

historian has explained how this mighty organisation crumbled to pieces

at the touch of a few European adventurers.

I have read with interest the able work of M. Vicente F. Lopez, _Les

Races Aryennes du Pérou_ (Paris: Franck, 1871): he derives the word

from Pirhua, the first Ynka deified to a Creator. He adopts (p. 17)

against Garcilasso de la Vega, who gave the Ynkarial Empire 400 years,

the opinions of the learned Dr. Fernando Montésinos el Visitador, of

the later sixteenth century, who is set aside by Markham, _Narratives

of the Yncas_ (Hakluyt, 1873). Montésinos derives the Peruvians from

Armenia five centuries after ‘the Flood,’ and assigns 4,000 years

with 101 emperors to the dynasty; it begins with Manko Kapak, son of

Pirhua Manko; and Sinchi Roka (No. xcv. of Montésinos) is Garcilasso’s

official founder (p. 25).

But I cannot follow M. Lopez in his theories of ‘Aryanism’ (Zend and

Sanskrit) or ‘Turanianism’ (Chinese and Tartar). The Quichua wants

the peculiar Hindu cerebrals (which linger in English), and lacks the

‘l,’ so common in ‘Indo-European’ speech; ‘Lima,’ for instance, should

be ‘Rima.’ It has no dual, and no distinction between masculine and

feminine. But with the licence which M. Lopez allows himself, any

language might be derived from any other. For instance, _chinka_ from

_sinha_, ‘the lion’ (p. 138); _hakchikis_ = _hashish_, ‘intoxicating

herb’; _kekenti_, ‘humming-bird,’ from _kvan_, ‘to hum’; _huahua_,

‘son,’ from _su_, ‘to engender,’ _sunus_, &c., (when in Egypt we have

_su_); and _mama_, ‘mother,’ from _mata_, μήτηρ, _mater_, when we have

_mut_ and _mute_ in Nile-land. For _mara_, ‘to kill,’ ‘death,’ the old

Coptic preserves _mer_, _meran_, ‘to die’; and for _mayu_, ‘water,’

_mu_.

I thus prefer the monosyllabic Egyptian for Quichua roots, noting the

two forms of pronoun, isolated (_nyoka_ = I = _anuk_) and affixed

(_huahua-í_, ‘my son;’ _huahua-ki_, ‘thy son;’ _huahua-u_, ‘his son’).

The heliolatry of the Andes was that of the Nile Valley; _Kon_ is the

Egyptian _Tum_, ‘the setting sun.’ The god Papacha wears on his head

the scarabæus of Ptah, or Creative Might. The pyramids and megalithic

buildings are also Nilotic. The pottery shows three several styles,

Egyptian, Etruscan, and Pelasgic. The population was divided into

the four Egyptian castes (p. 396), priests (_mankos_ and _amautas_),

soldiers (_aucas_, _aukas_), peasants (_uyssus_), and shepherds or

nomads (_chakis_). According to Cieza de Leon (p. 197) they thought

more of the building and adorning of their tombs than of their houses;

their mummies were protected by little idols, and the corpse carried

the ferryman’s fee. The pyramid of Copan (Yucatan), 122 feet high, with

its 6-feet steps, is that of Sakkarah. The Yucatan beard in statues

is Pharaohic. The elephant-trunk ornaments (Stephens, ii. 156) are

Indo-Chinese. The geese-breeding (ii. 179) is Egyptian. See also the

Toltec legend of the House of Israel (ii. 172).

[213] The ‘lovely valley, Andahualas,’ is from Anta and Huaylla,

pasture—i.e. ‘copper-coloured meadow.’ Anta in Cieza de Leon appears to

be copper, whereas other writers make it bronze.

[214] _Peruvian Antiquities_, by Don M. E. de Rivero and J. J. von

Tschudi.

[215] They abandoned the native silver mines when the ore became too

hard, and they smelted it in small portable stoves. They knew also

the chemical combinations, sulphate, antimonial, and others; and they

worked quicksilver. They had mines of Quella (Khellay, or iron), but

they found difficulty in extracting it. Besides smelting, they could

use the tacana (hammer), cast in moulds, inlay, and solder.

[216] Ewbank, of whom more presently, sketches a well-cast axe (p.

455). He translates _anta_ by bronze (p. 455).

[217] Doubtless copied from Old-World articles. On the west side of

Palenque the Sword is distinctly Egyptian (Stephens, _Yucatan_). I

have attempted to show how easily castaway mariners could be swept by

currents from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. See ‘Ostreiras of the

Brazil’ in _Anthropologia_, No. 1, October 1873.

[218] _Antiquarian, Ethnological, and other Researches._ By William

Bollaert. London: Trübner, 1860. We must probably change ‘brass’ into

‘bronze’ when he says (p. 90) that ‘the Peruvians used tools of brass.’

[219] Appendix to _Life in Brazil_ (Sampson Low, 1856).

[220] This white copperas was detected by Scacchi on the fumaroles

after the Vesuvian eruption of 1855.

[221] Gold was shown by yellow, and silver by white. Dr. Evans

(_Bronze_, &c. p. 7) suggests that the round blue bar used by butchers

(Wilkinson, iii. 247) was not of steel; but his reasons are peculiarly

unsatisfactory. The file is a common implement amongst savages,

doubtless derived from the practice of cross-hatching wooden grips

and handles. Mr. A. H. Rhind (_Thebes_, &c.) attributes little weight

to the diversity of colours employed by ancient Egyptians to depict

metallic objects, and he finds red and green confused.

[222] Thus we have a blue war-helmet of ring-mail (Lepsius,

_Denkmäler_, iii. 115 &c.), a blue war-hatchet with wooden handle,

and spears pointed with brown-red and blue (copper and iron) in the

tomb of Ramses III. The war-car of an Æthiopian king, in the days of

Tutankamun, has blue wheels and a body of yellow (gold). Lepsius,

however, adds: ‘It is very remarkable that in all the representations

of the old empire, blue-painted instruments can scarcely be traced.’

This simply proves that iron and steel were rare.

[223] _Prehistoric Man_, chap. viii.

[224] It was analysed by Mr. E. Tookey, with the following results:

Copper 97·12

Arsenic 2·29

Iron 0·43

Tin, with traces of gold 0·24

——————

100·08

The presence of the tin may have been accidental. The proportion of

arsenic (2¼ per cent.) might have been expected to harden the metal,

yet it was so soft as to be almost useless.

[225] See chap. ix.

[226] It is equivalent to the Roman’s ‘Aliud clausum in pectore, aliud

in lingua promptum habere.’

[227] So amongst the Jews the sharp knives for circumcision (_Josh._ v.

2–3) were of the silex which they learned from the Egyptians; and the

custom continued long after the invention of metal blades.

[228] It was opened by Herr Ramsauer, and carefully described in _Das

Grabfeld von Hallstatt_, by Baron E. von Sacken. I shall have more to

say of it in chap. xiii.

[229] Prinseps’ _Essays_ (London, 1858), vol. i. p. 222, pl. xliv. fig.

12, and _Journ. R. As. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vii. pl. xxxii. fig. 12.

Long descriptions of copper smelting in India are found in _Science

Gleanings_, pp. 380 _et seq._, No. 36, Dec. 1831, Calcutta, and in

Percy (_Metall._ p. 387); the latter by Mr. H. F. Blanford, of the

Geol. Survey, who made especial studies in Himalayan Sikkim and the

Nepaulese Tirhai. The workmen, who are of low caste, win the stone

in small blast-furnaces about three feet high, burning charcoal and

cow-chips. They work not only the easily reducible carbonates, but

sulphuretted ores, copper pyrites, with a mixture of mundic (iron

pyrites).

[230] Scales are apparently implied by _kaskassin_ (_1 Sam._ xvii.),

which in Leviticus and Ezekiel applies to fish-scales.

[231] The shekel is usually estimated at 220 grs. (Troy), which

would reduce the weights to 22·91 and 190·97 lbs. respectively; but

Maimonides makes it = 320 grains of barley = as many grains Troy.

See Parkhurst (_Lex._, _s.v._ ‘Amat’). Either figure would form a

fair burden for a horse; and the spear would have been a most unhandy

article, unless used by a man ten feet tall. I shall notice the

Gathite’s Sword in chap. ix.

[232] _Ethnology of the British Islands._ We also read: ‘Copper Swords

have been found in Ireland; iron among the Britons and Gauls; bronze

was used by the Romans, and probably by the Egyptians; and steel of

varying degrees of hardness is now the only weapon employed.’ (J.

Latham: see chap. vii.)

[233] _Trans. Edinb. Philos. Soc._ Feb. 1822.

[234] J. A. Phillips, F.C.S. _Memoirs of the Chemical Soc._ vol. iv.

[235] _Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, p. 246.

[236] See Sir W. Wilde’s _Cat. Metallic Materials—Celts_, Museum of

Royal Irish Academy.

[237] _History of Kerry_, p. 125.

[238] Yet Æschylus (_Agamem._) uses both _chalcos_ and _sideros_

generically for a weapon.

[239] _Ilios_, &c. (London, Murray, 1880).

[240] Some small objects are reported as wheel-made; but this requires

confirmation, according to a writer in the _Athenæum_ (Dec. 18, 1880).

[241] The copper bracelet (_Troy_, p. 150, No. 88) with its terminal

knobs is the modern trade ‘manilla’ of the West African coast. This

survival will again be noticed in chap. ix.

[242] The word in its older form was written ‘allay.’ Johnson derives

it from _à la loi_, _allier_, _allocare_: it appears to me the Spanish

_el ley_, the legal quality of coinable metal. We have now naturalised

in English _ley_, meaning a standard of metals. (Sub voc. _Dict. of

Obsolete and Provincial English_, by Thomas Wright; London, Bell and

Daldy, 1869.)

[243] _Recherches sur les Mystères_; and _Mémoire pour servir à la

religion secrète_, &c. &c.

[244] The ‘Aglaophemus,’ so called from the initiator of Pythagoras. I

see symptoms of a revival in assertions concerning a ‘highly cultivated

beginning, with the arts well known and practised to an extent which,

in subsequent ages, has never been approached; and from which there

has not anywhere been discovered a gradual advancement; but, on the

contrary, an immediate and decidedly progressive declension.’ This,

however, is a mere question of dates. Man’s civilisation began long

before the Mosaic Creation; and science has agreed to believe that

savage life generally is not a decadence from higher types, not a

degeneracy, but a gradual development.

[245] We now divide language into three periods: 1st, intonative,

like the cries of children and lower animals; 2nd, imitative, or on

onomatopoetic; and 3rd, conventional, the civilised form.

[246] _Axieros_ (the earth-goddess), _Axiokersa_ (Proserpine of the

Greeks), _Axiokersos_ (Hades), and _Casmilos_ (Hermes or Mercury).

Ennemoser may be right in making the Kabeiroi pygmies (i.e. gnomes),

but not in rendering Dactyloi by ‘finger-size.’

[247] The lame and deformed ‘artificer of the universe,’ who became

Hephæstos (Vulcan) in Greece, and Vishvakarma in India. Sokar has left

his name in the modern ‘Sakkárah.’

[248] The Assyrian cuneiforms allude to ‘the (Great) Bear making its

crownship,’ that is, circling round the North Pole.

[249] The temples of the Cabiri have lately been explored by Prof.

Conze for the Austrian Government at Samothrace, and we may expect to

learn something less vague concerning these mysterious ancients.

[250] The Rev. Basil H. Cooper believes that the Phrygian was the

original Ida, which gradually passed to Crete; and here the Idæi were

priests of Cybele. He is disposed to connect with it the Greek Σίδ(ηρο);

the German _Eisen_ (and our iron), and the _Ida feldt_ and

_Asi_ of the Norse myths (Day, p. 133).]

[251] The name is derived by Bochart from Heb. _Lub_ or _Lelub_,

חיקלוב, chiefs of the Libu or Ribu, as the old Egyptians called the

Libyans. Hence the Prom. Lilybæum (_Li-Lúb_) and the Sinus ad Libyam or

Lilybatanus.

[252] We have satisfactory details concerning the Chalybes, who border

on Armenia, in the _Anabasis_ (iv. 5, &c.). They dwell two days

from Cotyora, the colony planted by Sinope; they are subject to the

Mossynœci, and they subsist by iron-working (v. 5). Though few, they

are a most warlike people, full of fight. Their armour consists of

helmets, greaves, and cuirasses of twisted linen cords, reaching to the

groin. They carry spears about fifteen cubits long, ‘having one spike’

(i.e. without ferule); and at their girdles a short faulchion, as large

as a Spartan crooked dagger, with which they cut the throats of all

whom they can master; and then, lopping off their heads, bear them away

(iv. 7). Strabo makes the Chalybes the same as their neighbours the

Chaldæi.

[253] The well-known inscription on the tomb of Midas, and another

given by Texier (_Asie Mineure_, ii. 57) show the Phrygian tongue to

have been a congener of Greek. Even the _Békos_ of Herodotus (ii. 2)

is allied to our ‘bake,’ and _Bédu_ to our ‘water.’ We are greatly in

want of further information about Phrygia, and it is to be hoped that

Colonel Wilson and Mr. W. M. Ramsay will complete the labours of Texier

and Hamilton.

[254] The Aryans of Herodotus, about the Arius river (_Heri-rúd_), are

an undistinguished tribe, a mere satrapy. Strabo’s Aria (xi. 9) is a

tract about 250 by 40 miles. In Pliny (vi. 23) Ariana includes only the

lands of the Gedrosi (Mekran), the Arachoti (Kandahár), the Arii proper

(Herat), and the Parapomisadæ (Kabul). It has been truly said that even

if Aryan and Turanian man (first) centred in and emerged from these

areas (the table-lands of Asia), the so-called history is entirely

based on the philological discoveries of the Sanskritist school.

[255] Therasia and Therassia, now Santorin. Here have been found ruins

of prehistoric cities buried by the great central volcano. According to

most geologists the latter was exhausted in B.C. 1800–1700.

[256] I have personally noticed this, and described it in _Midian

Revisited_, vol. i. p. 143.

[257] Beckmann (_s.v._ ‘Tin’) tells us that the metal ‘never occurs in

a native state.’ He forgets stream-tin. He also denies that the oldest

‘cassiteron’ and ‘stannum’ were tin; and considers them to mean the

German _Werk_, a regulus of silver and lead. His _vasa stannea_ are

vessels covered with tin in the inside. In the fourth century ‘plumbum

candidum’ or ‘album’ was superseded by ‘stannum.’ Speaking of electrum,

Beckmann asserts that ‘the ancients were not acquainted with the art of

separating gold and silver.’ ‘Britain,’ Ynis Prydhain Island, where the

god Prydhain was worshipped, or rather ‘Isle of the Brythons,’ has been

fancifully derived by the energetic Semitiser from Barrat-et-Tanuk =

Land of Tin.

[258] Ezekiel tells us that the Tyrians received tin, as well as other

metals, from Tarshish, or Western Tartessus, in the Bay of Gibraltar.

[259] M. Emile Burnouf, ‘L’Age de Bronze,’ _Revue des Deux Mondes_,

July 15, 1877, also brings tin from Banca. The island is about 150

miles long by 36 broad; it has no mountain backbone, but the peak

of Goonong Maras rises some 3,000 feet above the sea-level. Chinese

coolies still work the mines of Mintok, and in 1852 the yearly yield

was some 50,000 piculs (each = 133⅓ lbs.) at the cost of nine rupees

per picul.

[260] Beckmann (_loc. cit._), like Michaelis, is surprised at the

Midianites possessing tin in the days of Moses. These were the views

of the last century. I have suggested (_Athenæum_, Nov. 24, 1880) that

the old Nile-dwellers extended through Midian to El-Hejáz and El-Yemen,

where they worked the mines which became known to the Hebrews.

[261] In 1866 De Rougemont made Phœnicia supply bronze to Europe, the

copper being brought from Cyprus. Besides the Mediterranean, we find a

Uralian and a Danubian branch of the industry. Before 1877 France had

supplied 650 bronze Swords and daggers, Sweden 480, and Switzerland 86.

[262] _Alias_ the Œstrymnides. Borlase was of opinion that the group

formed one block, with several headlands, of which ‘Scilly’ was the

highest, outermost, and most conspicuous. He conjectures the original

name to be _Syllé_, _Sulla_, or _Sulleh_, a flat rock dedicated to the

sun; hence the Lat. _Siliræ_, _Silures_, and _Sigdeles_; the Engl.

_Sylley_, _Scilley_, and lately _Scilly_; the Fr. _Sorlingues_; and the

Span. _Sorlingas_. The Keltic name of the chief feature was Inis Caer.

[263] _Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Part II. ‘The

Archaic or Bronze Period.’ Daniel Wilson.

[264] Pliny represents the Cassiterides as fronting Celtiberia. He

considers it a ‘fabulous story’ that the Greeks fetched ‘white lead’

from the islands of the Adriatic.

[265] _Prehistoric Times_, by Sir John Lubbock, 4th edit. (London:

Williams and Norgate, 1878.)

[266] The identification is not settled; some propose the Isle of

Thanet.

[267] Beckmann, _sub voce_ ‘Tin.’

[268] According to Messrs. Wibel, Fellemberg, and Damour, who

investigated even 10/1000 parts, the average proportions were ⅒ tin

to 9 copper; and ¼ tin for hard metal, as chisels, &c. M. E. Chauntre,

_Age de Bronze_. 3 vols. (Paris: Baudry.)

[269] The late General Uchatius, who ‘trusted in princes,’ and whose

tragical death was greatly lamented by his friends, always declared

that he had rediscovered (not discovered) the hardening of copper and

bronze; and that he hoped to arrive at other secrets. His career was

cut short before he learned to make the metal and the alloy resilient.

[270] _Thut_, _Tuth_, _Toth_, _Thoth_, &c., the moon-god who became

Hermes Trismegistus.

[271] Phosphor-bronze, for whose manufacture companies are now

established in London and elsewhere, has the ordinary composition with

the addition of red or amorphous phosphorus dropped upon the melted

metal in the crucible. Berthier (_Traité des Essais_, ii. 410) states

that a very small quantity of phosphorus renders copper extremely

hard and suitable for cutting instruments. Percy (_Metallurgy_) found

that copper will take up 11 per cent. of phosphorus; the metal, which

assumes a grey tint, is quite homogeneous, and so hard that it can

scarcely be touched by the file. The addition of phosphorus promotes

the reduction of the oxides, and enables an exceedingly sound and

durable casting to be made; but if it exceed ½ per cent. the metal

becomes very brittle. Dr. Percy has described phosphor-silver,

phosphor-lead, and phosphor-iron. The phosphorus is, according to some

authorities, apt to volatilise with time. At present a new form of

bronze, the antimonial, in proportions of 1–2 per cent., is coming into

fashion: it is said to be malleable and ductile, and to resist torsion

in a high degree. Another new bronze is the aluminium, whose price

has been reduced from 1,000_l._ to 100_l._ per ton by Mr. Webster, of

Hollywood, near Birmingham.

[272] So called from Cape Emeri in Naxos.

[273] Appendix to Layard’s _Nineveh and Babylon_ (London: Murray).

The proportions are nearly those of our day. We may assume our common

bronze at 11:100 for large, and 10:100 for small objects. Cymbals

and sounding instruments, however, contain tin 22:copper 78.

[274] Analysed by Mr. Robinson of Pimlico (Day, p. 110).

[275] Schliemann’s _Troy_, p. 361 (London: Murray, 1875).

[276] Sir W. Gell found the bronze nails in the ‘Treasury of Atreus’

composed of 12 tin to 88 copper. The Trojan battle-axes, according to

Dr. Schliemann, yielded only 4, 8, and 9 per cent. of the former metal.

[277] According to Helbig, the Palafittes and Terramare villagers had

spears but not Swords.

[278] For the tin-ore of Peru see _Ethnolog. Journal_, vol. lxx. pp.

258–261. Rivero, p. 230, and Garcilasso, vol. i. p. 202.

[279] _Amer. Journ. of Science, &c._ v. 42; July 1866.

[280] From descriptions and drawings by Mr. J. H. Godfrey, Mining

Engineer-in-Chief to the Imperial Government of Japan.

[281] M.D., F.R.S., ‘Observations on some Metallic Arms and Utensils,

with Experiments to determine their Composition.’ Royal Soc. London,

June 9, 1796. _Philosophical Transactions._

[282] Taken from Dr. Evans (_Bronze Impl. &c._ chap. xxi.). He compiled

it from Martineau & Smith’s _Hardware Trade Journal_ (April 30, 1879).

[283] Wilkinson remarked that the Egyptian proportions of half tin and

half copper were whitish.

[284] Lord Rosse, in casting specula, preferred using copper and tin in

their atomic proportions, or 68·21 per cent. copper to 31·79 per cent.

tin.

[285] _Speltrum_ was introduced by Boyle. During the last century much

zinc was imported from India (possibly supplied by China), and was

called tutenag.

[286] Bohn’s _Trans._ ii. 32–45. The learned German begins by stating

that zinc was not known to the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, and then

proceeds to prove that it was. The word ‘zinc’ (from _zenken_

or _zacken_, nails, spikes?) first occurs in the works of the

Iatro-chemist, Paracelsus, who died in A.D. 1541.

[287] _Blende_ is a generic word, from _blenden_, to dazzle.

[288] Mongez, _Mém. de l’Institut_.

[289] At Goslar, however, according to Lohnriss, brass was made in A.D.

1617.

[290] Pliny, xxxiii. 27. The solder (χρυσός and κόλλα, glue, or

κόλλησις) is attributed by Herod. (i. 25) to Glaucus of Chios, a

contemporary of Alyattes. The word _kóllesis_ is variously rendered

‘soldering,’ ‘brazing,’ ‘welding,’ and ‘inlaying.’ Kóllesis was used

to agglutinate metals, and treated with a peculiar alkali (Pliny,

xxxiii. 24). The ‘gold glue’ (_chrysocolla_) is usually understood to

be a hydrosilicate of copper; not to be confounded with the χρυσόκολλα

or borax. The Mycenian goldsmiths soldered with the help of borax

(borate of soda): Professor Landerer, of Athens, found this salt on

an old medal from Ægina. It was called in the Middle Ages, Borax

Venetus, because imported by the Venetians from Persia; and it is the

Tinkal of modern India. According to Pliny, lead cannot be soldered

without tin, or tin without lead, and oil invariably must be used.

Later usage substituted for the latter colophonium and other resins:

we now solder by means of electricity. The same writer makes Nero

use chrysocolla-powder (a siliceous carbonate of copper, a kind of

blue-stone which would turn green by exposure to damp) for strewing the

circus, to give the course the colour of his favourite faction, the

_Prasine_ (green).

[291] The Germans, who delight in German derivatives for European

words, would find _leiton_, &c., not in _luteum_, but in _löthen_

= to unite. There is little doubt, however, that the first English

manufactory of calamine brass at Esher, in Surrey, was set up in the

seventeenth century by Demetrius, a German. In Grimm’s _Dictionary_,

as noticed by Demmin (chap. i), bronze is erroneously called _messing_

(brass).

[292] Derived from ὄρος, οὖρος (mountain), or from Ὀρείος, the

discoverer. Metallic names in Greek are mostly masculine; in Latin and

modern usage, neutral. _Oreichalcum_ or _aurichalcum_, a hybrid word,

became _aurochalcum_ in the ninth century: the last corruption (middle

of the sixteenth century) was _archal_.

[293] _De l’Orichalque._ J. P. Rossignol (_loc. cit._).

[294] Some translate this word ‘yellow frankincense’ (λίβανος)

colour; others derive it from Λίβανος, the Lebanon, and make it male,

_argurolibanus_, while _leucolibanus_ (white) was female. Finally, the

word was explained by the old interpreters to be = ὀρείχαλκος = brass

of Mount (Lebanon).

[295] The tradition of Atlantis, a middle-land in the Atlantic, has

strong claims to our acceptance. The identity of the site with the

‘Dolphin’s Ridge,’ a volcanic formation, and the shallows noted by

H.M.S. ‘Challenger,’ have been ably pleaded in _Atlantis_ (Ignatius

Donnelly; London: Sampson Low, 1882). Perhaps we may trace the vestiges

in Saint Paul’s Rocks, the remarkable group of rocky islets situate in

the equatorial mid-Atlantic. Mr. Darwin supposed the group to be an

isolated example of non-volcanic oceanic insularity; but Prof. Renard

finds the ‘balance of proof decidedly in favour of the volcanic origin

of the rock.’ It will be remembered that Atlantis was dismembered by

earthquakes, eruptions, and subsidence.

[296] Quoted by Percy from Watson’s _Chemical Essays_ (iv. p. 85, 1786).

[297] The artificial mixture of copper (four fifths) and gold

(one-fifth) was called _pyropus_ (Pliny, xxxiv. 2), from its fiery red

tint; it was also made of gold and bronze, and termed _chrysochalcos_,

‘the king of metals.’ _Æs corinthiacum_ (Pliny, xxxiv. 3), or

Corinthian brass, used for mirrors, composed of copper, silver (steel?

zinc?), and gold, was more valuable than gold. According to Pausanias

(ii. 3, § 3), this malleable and ductile metal was tempered in the

Fountain of Pyrene. The vulgar legend, refuted by Pliny, who tells

the tale (xxxiv. 6), dates it from the days of Mummius (B.C. 146). A

medal of Corinthian brass was analysed by the Duc de Luynes. Pliny

(xxxiv. 3) mentions three kinds, _candidum_, _luteum_, and _hepatizon_

(liver-colour), of equal quantities of metal; this probably resembled

our own alloys. Beckmann (_sub voc._ ‘Zinc’ and ‘Tin’) gives a list

of these and other compositions, Mannheim gold, Dutch gold, Prince’s

metal, Bristol brass, &c.

[298] Possibly the Armenian bole (Bol-i-Armani), used in the East as

a flux from time immemorial. The ‘dropping’ or ‘distilling’ (_per

descensum_) must allude to a distillatory or condensing apparatus, and

the ‘false silver’ cannot be mercury, lead, or tin.

[299] Hence _tutaneg_ and _tutanego_, which sometimes meant an alloy

of tin and bismuth. M. Polo (i. 21) describes ‘tutia’ as very good for

the eyes; and his notice of it, and of spodium, reads, according to

Colonel Yule, almost like a condensed translation of Galen’s pompholyx,

produced from cadmia or carbonate of zinc; and spodos, the residue

of the former, which falls on the hearth (_De Simp. Med._ p. ix.).

Matthioli makes pompholyx commonly known in the laboratories by the

Arabic name ‘tutia.’ The ‘tutia’ imported into Bombay from the Gulf is

made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, moulded into tubular cakes, and

baked to a moderate hardness.

[300] Masc. and fem.; the neut. ἤλεκτρον is the purest form. Dr.

Schliemann, noticing that it also means ‘amber’ (_Mycenæ_, p. 204),

derives it from ‘_elek_, signifying resin in Arabic (?), and probably

also in Phœnician (?).’ He found earrings of electrum in the so-called

‘Trojan Stratum,’ 30½ feet below the surface (_Troy_, p. 164). The

_guanin_ or _gianin_ of the Chiriquis was an aururet (electrum) of

19·3 per cent. of pure gold, with specific gravity 11·55. The _tombac_

or _tombag_ of New Granada, used for statuettes, was also a gold of

low standard: 63 gold, 24 silver, 9 copper. Usually ‘tombac’ applies

to an alloy like Mannheim gold; the manufacture was introduced into

Birmingham, still its chief seat, by the Turner family, A.D. 1740.

[301] ‘Elektron,’ however, is generally translated ‘amber’; and it

may be the _harpax_, or drawer, for it occurs in the same verse with

ivory. Amber beads and weapon-handles were amongst Dr. Schliemann’s

finds. Rossignol (p. 347) supposes that electrum, the pale-yellow or

amber-coloured alloy of gold and silver, gave a name to the gum amber.

[302] This text, stating a truth concerning native gold, suggests

amongst many that the ancients knew the _départ_, or separation, of

metals. It has been vehemently doubted whether they could mineralise

the white metal; that is, convert it to sulphide and allow the gold to

subside.

[303] Rossignol quotes Zonaras, Suidas, and John Pediasimus to prove

this position.

[304] We now lacquer with shell-lac dissolved in proof-spirit and

coloured with ‘dragon’s blood.’

[305] The lead was found in even larger proportions. See chap. xiii.

[306] In my commentary on Camoens (_Camoens: his Life and his

Lusiads_), and again in _To the Gold Coast for Gold_ (i. 17), I have

attempted to identify Western Tarshish or Tartessus with Carteia in

the Bay of Gibraltar. Newton makes Melcarth ‘King of Carteia’; but the

word may mean either ‘city-king’ (_Malik-el-Karyat_), or ‘earth-king’

(_Malik-el-Arz_).

[307] The well-known anthropologist, M. G. de Mortillet, holds that

the oldest type of bronze celt in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, is

that with straight flanges at the sides. This was followed by the celt

with transverse stop-ridge, by the true winged tool, by the socketed

adaptation, and, lastly, by the simple flat tool wanting rib or flange,

wing or socket, and formed of pure copper as well as of bronze.

Archæologists usually determine the last form to be the earliest; but

M. de Mortillet judges otherwise from the conditions under which the

finds occur.

[308] This weapon (_gladius_) is a Sword-blade, double-edged or

single-edged, straight or curved, and 4–9 inches long, much used in the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It originated from the old practice

of binding the sickle, scythe, axe, hatchet, or Sword to the end of a

pole and thus forming a pike.

[309] The Amazons of the Mausoleum (Newton, _Halicarnassus_, p. 235)

are armed with axe, bow, and Sword; the Greeks with javelins and Swords.

[310] The Massagetæ (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa

(or lesser) Getæ, and both used the _sagaris_. But while some authors

translate the word _securis_, others call it a ‘kind of Sword,’ and

others confuse it with the ἀκινάκης, the _acinaces_ which the Greek

mentions separately (iv. 62, viii. 67). Strabo (xi. 8) connects the

Massagetæ (Goths) with the _Sacæ_ (Saxons), and Major Jähn derives

_Sacæ_ (the _Shaka_ of the Hindus) from _Saighead_ = _Sagitta_. The

term ‘_Saxones_’ was later than the age of Tacitus, and we first

find it in the days of Antoninus Pius. ‘Brevis gladius apud illos

(_Saxones_) _Saxo_ vocatur’ suggests that the _Seax_ was connected with

the race of old (_Trans. Anthrop. Instit._ May 1880).

[311] _Loc. cit._ p. 43.

[312] Egypt. _akhu_, Lat. _ascia_, Germ. _Axt_. The oldest form is

‘_aks_’ (_securis_), the bipennis, ‘_dversahs_,’ and the dolabrum

‘_barte_.’ In Lower Saxon _axt_ is ‘_exe_,’ a congener of our ‘axe.’

[313] The word is variously written and explained.

[314] A _silepe_ from the armoury of King Mosesh was shown at the

National Exhibition amongst objects from Natal (Col. A. Lane Fox,

_Cat._ p. 145).

[315] Par Lacombe (Paris, Hachette, 1868).

[316] I have again noticed the _sahs_, _seax_, _sax_, and _scramasax_

in chap. xiii.

[317] Our ‘bill’ is the German _Beil_, the _securis_, or axe. Both

words appear to me congeners of the Greek βέλος, Sword or dart, showing

a missile-age, from βάλλειν, to throw; not, as Jähn thinks, from the

Sanskrit _bhil_. Robert Barret (1598) preferred the pike, although

owning that the bill had done good service. Even of late years Messrs.

John Mitchel and Meagher (‘of the Sword’) advised the wretched Irish

peasants to make pikes out of reaping-hooks.

[318] _Prehistoric Times_, p. 20. The Dublin Museum contains 1,283

articles of the Bronze Age.

[319] I assume as a type, the bronze Sword (Tafel iv.) in _Die

Alterthümer von Hallstätten, Salzburg, &c._ by Friedrich Simony (Wien,

1851).

[320] Pliny, xxxiv. 39.

[321] The word comes from the root which gave the Persian _áhan_; the

Irish _iaran_ or _yarann_; the Welsh _hiarn_; the Armorican _uarn_; the

Gothic _eisarn_; the Danish _iern_; the Swedish _iarn_; the Cimbric

_jara_; the German _Eisen_, and the Latin _ferrum_, with the neo-Latin

_ferro_, _hierro_ (Span.), &c. From _iaran_ also we derive _Harnisch_,

harness.

[322] The unfortunate Cretans gained the name of ‘ever liars’ (ἀεὶ

ψεῦσται) for telling what was probably the truth. They showed in their

island the grave of Jupiter, who must have been originally some hero or

chief deified after his death—evidently one of the origins of worship.

The evil report began with Callimachus (_Hymn. in Jov._ 8); and was

continued in the proverbial τρία κάππα κάκιστα (Krete, Kappadocia, and

Kilikia). Hence the syllogistic puzzle of Eubulides: ‘Epimenides said

that the Cretans are liars: Epimenides is a Cretan: _ergo_, Epimenides

is a liar: _ergo_, the Cretans are not liars: _ergo_, Epimenides is not

a liar.’

[323] Chap. iv. The Chalybs of Justin (xliv. 3) is a river between

the Ana (Guadiana) and the Tagus; called by Ptolemy and Martianus,

Κάλιπους or Κάλιπος. Æschylus alludes to the original Chalybes when

he personifies the Sword as the ‘Chalybian stranger,’ and in the same

tragedy (_Seven against Thebes_) he entitles it ‘the hammer-wrought

Scythian steel.’

[324] ‘To the abundance of iron we may attribute the fact that the

Africans appear to have passed direct from the stone implements, that

are now found in the soil, to those of iron, without passing through

the intermediate bronze period which, in Egypt and other countries,

intervened between the ages of stone and iron.’—_Anthropol. Coll._ pp.

128–134.

[325] ‘The High Antiquity of Iron and Steel,’ a valuable paper read

before the Philos. Soc. Glasgow, printed in _Iron_ (1875–76), and

kindly sent to me by the editor, Mr. Nursey; also _The Prehistoric Use

of Iron and Steel_ (Trübner, London, 1877), from which Mr. Day has

allowed me to make extracts.

[326] The question is to be determined by facts, not theories. Hitherto

we are justified in believing, from the skeletons dug up at great

depths, or found in caves associated with the mammals which they

destroyed, that Man in prehistoric times was of a low physical, and

therefore mental type. We shall believe the opposite view when we are

shown ancient crania equal, if not superior, to those of the present

day—relics that will revive the faded glories of ‘Father Adam’ and

‘Mother Eve.’ But, meanwhile, we cannot be expected to believe in _ipse

dixits_, inspired or uninspired.

[327] For instance, in North-Western Europe, the early iron age began

about A.D. 250, according to Konrad Englehardt (_Denmark in the early

Iron Age_, p. 4, London, 1866), quoted by Mr. Day.

[328] _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_, vol. v.; London, Longmans,

1867, with additions by Samuel Birch, LL.D.

[329] When Laplace made meteorolites ejections from lunar volcanoes,

Chladni suggested that they were masses of metallic matter, moving in

irregular orbits through interplanetary, and possibly interstellar,

space.

[330] This word is tortured by non-Orientalists into various ill-forms.

The Arabs write it جيزة (_Jízeh_), and the Egyptians pronounce it

_Gízeh_, not _Ghizeh_.

[331] A full-sized drawing appeared in vol. vii. of _Proceedings of the

Phil. Soc. Glasgow_; and was repeated by Mr. Day in his book, Pl. II.

he also gives Belzoni’s sickle, Pl. I.

[332] When visiting the ‘Tombs of the Soldans,’ Cairo, I found a slab

of blue basalt bearing the cartouche of Khufu, used as a threshold for

one of the buildings. The characters had been partly erased; but the

material was too hard for the barbarians who had misused it.

[333] I have elsewhere noticed (chap. iv.) the colours of metals in the

painted tombs of Thebes, and the blue (cyanus-colour) of the butcher’s

steel. The history of this homely article is instructive. For hundreds

of years it retained, in England and elsewhere, its original shape, an

elongated cone. At last some ‘cute citizen had the idea of breaking the

surface into four edges, and of hardening it with nickel. The simple

improvement now fits it for sharpening everything from a needle to a

razor: it thus frees us from the ‘needy knife-grinder,’ who right well

deserved to be needy, as he disadorned everything he touched.

[334] _Antiquity of the Use of Metals, especially Iron, among the

Egyptians_, p. 18 (London, 1868). Also _Ueber die Priorität des Eisens

oder der Bronze in Ostasien_, by Dr. M. Müller (_Trans. Vienna Anthrop.

Soc._ vol. ix.).

[335] I assume this date because it marks when the spring equinox

(vernal colure) occurred in the Taurus-sign. The earliest of the six

epochs proposed by Egyptologists is B.C. 5702 (Böckh), and the latest

is B.C. 3623 (Bunsen); the mean being B.C. 4573, and the difference a

matter of 2079 years (Brugsch, i. 30).

[336] The Table of Sakkarah (Memphis), found about the end of 1864

by the late Mariette Pasha, dates from Ramses the Great (thirteenth

century B.C.), and makes Mibampes the first of his fifty-six ancestors.

No. 2 is the new tablet of Abydos, discovered, also in 1864, by Herr

Dümmichen; it enabled scholars to supply the illegible name in No.

3, the priceless Turin Papyrus, the hieratic Canon of the Ptolemies.

Mirbampes, Mirbapen, or Mi-ba of the monuments is, called in Manetho

‘Miebides, son of Usarphædus’ (_Cory’s Fragments_, p. 112).

[337] Of Ramses II., who, with his father Seti, represents the Greek

Sesostris, the Sesesu-Ra of the monuments. (Brugsch, _Hist._ ii. 53–62:

see my chap. viii.) Prof. G. Ebers has made this Egyptian proto-Homerid

the hero of his romance, _Uarda_ (i.e. Wardah, ‘the Rose’).

[338] _De Iside et Osiride._ He quotes Manetho the Priest, who wrote

during the reign of the first Ptolemy, and who told unpleasant truths

concerning Moses, the Hebrews, and the Exodus.

[339] The limestones of Carniola produce heaps of pisoliths, which

require only smelting; and hence, probably, the early Iron Age of

Noricum and its neighbourhood.

[340] They suggest the magnetic and titaniferous iron sands of Wicklow,

of New Zealand, of Australia, and of a variety of sites mentioned in

_To the Gold Coast for Gold_, ii. 111.

[341] The Naphtuhim of Scripture.

[342] _Percy’s Metallurgy_, p. 874, first edit.

[343] _Proc. Soc. Antiq._ second series, vol. v., June 1873. Mr.

Hartland added rubbings of various Pharaohnic stones, hoping to ‘show

how little the mind of civilised man has developed during 3,000 years.’

A pleasant lesson to humanity! But after all thirty centuries are a

mere section of the civilisation which began in Egypt.

[344] The Corsican is simply a blacksmith’s forge. The Catalan has a

heavy hammer and blowing-machine; if the _trompe_ be used, a fall of

water is required for draught. The Stückofen is a Catalan extended

upwards in the form of a quadrangular or circular shaft, 10–16 feet

high.

[345] It is to be noted that flint implements were found all about

these works: Mr. Hartland brought home from them silex arrow-heads.

The late lamented Professor Palmer observed them in other parts of

the Pharan peninsula, and I made a small collection in Midian. In the

_Journ. of the Anthrop. Soc._ 1879, I showed, following Mr. Ouvry,

Sir John Lubbock, and others, that Cairo is surrounded by ancient

flint-ateliers. M. Lartet explored them in Southern Palestine; I picked

them up near Bethlehem (_Unexplored Syria_, ii. 289). The Abbé Richard

and others traced them at Elbireh (in the Tiberiad); between Tabor and

the Lake; and, lastly, at Galgal, where Joshua circumcised. Lastly, my

late friend Charles F. Tyrwhitt-Drake, when travelling with me, came

upon an atelier east of Damascus. I have noticed General Pitt-Rivers’

great Egyptian discovery in chap. ii.

[346] _Hek_ or _hak_ (chief) has a suspicious resemblance to _Shaykh_

and _sos_ to _sús_, the mare, characteristically ridden by the Bedawin.

In old Egyptian _sos_ is a buffalo.

[347] Movers (_Phönicier_, ii. 3), quoted by Dr. Evans (_Bronze, &c._

5), finds bronze (copper?) 44 and iron 13 times in the Pentateuch, and

he theorises upon the later introduction of the latter. But when was

the Pentateuch written in its present form?

[348] Rougemont, _L’Age du Bronze_, pp. 188 _et seq._

[349] Volney, _Travels_, ii. 438.

[350] Much of it, however, was the amygdaloid greenstone, called in

English ‘toad-stone,’ a corruption of the Germ. _Todstein_.

[351] _Speaker’s Commentary_, i. 831.

[352] This term seems first to have been used by Orosius (i. 2) in our

fourth century.

[353] In chap. ix. I shall attempt to show that Naharayn (the dual of

Nahr, a river) is also applied to Palestine in such phrases as ‘Tunipe

(Daphne-town) of Naharayn.’

[354] Dr. Percy found that certain Assyrian bronzes had been cast round

a support of the more tenacious metal, thus combining strength with

lightness.

[355] M. F. Lenormant (‘Les Noms d’Airain et du Cuivre dans les

deux Langues ... de la Chaldée et de l’Assyrie, _Trans. Soc. Bibl.

Archæology_, vi. part 2) renders _parzillu_, iron; _abar_, lead;

_shiparru_ (Arab. صفر, brass), bronze; _anaku_, tin; _eru_ or _erudu_,

copper or bronze (Arab. ايار, copper or brass); _kashpu_, silver;

and _kurashu_, gold. The learned author discovers in the cuneiforms

repeated mention of the ‘ships of Mákan’ and the Kur Makannata

(mountain of Makná), which he translates ‘Pays de Mákan’: finding

it a great centre of copper, he is inclined to confound it with the

so-called Sinaitic Peninsula. I have only to refer readers to ‘Makná’

in my three volumes on the Land of Midian.

[356] Akkad is upper, Sumir lower Babylonia.

[357] _The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World_, vol. i.

p. 62. London, 1871.

[358] The first period extended from B.C. 1500 to 909. The second from

B.C. 909 to 745: the most marking names being Assurnazirpal = ‘Ashur

(arbiter of the gods) protects his son,’ who built the north-west

palace of Nimrúd, B.C. 884; and his son Shalmanezer II. of the Black

Obelisk (Brit. Museum), B.C. 850. The third period (B.C. 745–555)

numbered Tiglath-Pileser II., B.C. 745–727 (a single generation before

the first Olympic, B.C. 776, when the mythic age of Greece emerges

into the historical); Sennacherib (705–681); Esarhaddon (680–668),

Assur-bani-pal (668–640); Nebuchadnezzar in 604–561, a contemporary of

Solon (B.C. 594); Nergalsharuzur (B.C. 557); and the last Nabonidus

(B.C. 555). Herodotus (B.C. 450) wrote about a century after the end

of the third period, Ctesias in B.C. 395, and Berosus in B.C. 280. We

have, it is clear, absolutely no historic proof that ‘the patriarchal

system of communities first locally developed itself at the mouth of

the Euphrates Valley,’ or began in any part of the great Mesopotamian

plain.

[359] Rev. B. H. Cooper (_loc. cit._) would derive ‘Ida’ from the

Semitic יר (_yad_, hand), and make the Daktyls, or fingers, its peaks.

[360] I shall reserve for chap. xi. notices of iron by the classic and

sacred poets of Greece.

[361] _Troy and its Remains_, p. 362; the analysis by M. Damour of

Lyons.

[362] The theory of Stephani, Schulze, and others concerning the

Byzantine date and Herulian origin of the Mycenæan graves, has been

treated in England with some respect by Mr. A. S. Murray and Mr. Perry.

[363] According to Pausanias, Alyattes, the Lydian king (ob. B.C. 570),

dedicated to his god, amongst other offerings, an inlaid iron saucer.

[364] Neither from this nor from any other passage can we ascertain

whether the Chalybes tribe gave its name to _chalybs_ (steel), or

whether the material worked named the workmen.

[365] Colonel Yule (_M. Polo_, ii. 96) remarks that in the Middle Ages

steel was regarded as a distinct natural species made of another ore,

and relates how a native to whom an English officer had explained the

process of tempering replied, ‘What, would you have me believe that if

I put an ass into the furnace it will come out a horse?’

[366] _Acies_ is properly the edge, that is, the steeled or cutting

part of an instrument, which may be case-hardened. Hence the later

words _aciare_, to steel, and _aciarium_, sharpening steel; hence, too,

the neo-Latin _acier_, _acciaio_, &c.

[367] See chap. xiii. Dr. Evans (_Bronze_, 275) says, ‘How far their

process of burying iron until part of it had rusted away would, in the

case of charcoal iron, leave the remaining portion more of the nature

of steel, I am unable to say.’ It will appear that this burying is

often spoken of; I have never seen it practised.

[368] Regulus (the ‘little king’) is the residue of pure metal purged

of its dross; the old alchemists so entitled it because they ever

expected to find the great king—Gold.

[369] At the Anthropological Congress of Austrian Salzburg (Aug. 1881)

the tools attributed to the ‘Keltic’ miners were almost the same as

those which I had seen near the Wrekin.

[370] Ingénieur des Mines: ‘Gisements métallifères du District de

Carthagène (Espagne),’ Liège, 1875; a contribution to the _Proc.

Geolog. Soc. Belgium_; and the result of extensive geological and

mineralogical observation. The coloured map shows the strata-sequence

(actual and in ideal order) to be tertiary limestone, iron-ore

(carbonated, manganiferous, or plumbiferous); schistes; blende;

schistes; silicated iron and schistes.

[371] _Lectures on the Science of Language_, pp. 254–55, vol. ii.,

edit. 1873.

[372] _Chips from a German Workshop_ (set up in England), p. 47, vol.

ii., edit. 1868.

[373] Mr. Day (_General Table of Terms_, given at end of this chapter)

quotes as ‘oldest Sanskrit’ two names of iron, आर (_ár_ or _ára_),

meaning the planet Mars (_Ares_) or Saturn; iron (oxide of iron,

ironstone?), brass (copper?); and अयस्, _áyas_ (whence _ayaskant_,

a loadstone, and _ayaskár_, a smith), a word already noticed in

connection with _æs_. But Mr. Day adds to his ‘oldest Sanskrit’

‘probably B.C. 1500’; and here again we recognise the master-touch of

the subtle race—

‘for profound

And solid lying much renowned.’

[374] Report of Gen. A. Cunningham (Archæolog. Survey, 1861–62). It

speaks highly for Anglo-Indian _vis inertiæ_ and incuriousness when we

are told that the ‘whole length of the pillar is unknown,’ and when

every observer’s account of it differs in essentials.

[375] The _savant_ who first translated the inscription _Indian

Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 319. The dates vary between the tenth century

B.C. and A.D. 1052 (!).

[376] The Persian _haft-júsh_ (seven boilings), referred to by Ibn

Batutah in Colonel Yule’s letter, p. 145 (Day, p. 153).

[377] Quoted by Mr. Day (p. 24) from the _United States Railroad and

Mining Register_.

[378] Mr. Day (quoting Fergusson’s _Illustrations of Ancient

Architecture in Hindostan_, London, 1848) cautions his readers that

‘Mr. Fergusson’s dates are not to be relied on, however important his

writings unquestionably are in other respects’ (p. 168). Here again

we see the misleading influence of the Sanskritists, who have allowed

themselves to be cozened by the ‘mild Hindu.’ Mr. Day inclines (p. 151)

to the tenth century B.C. (!), when the peoples of India were, we have

reason to believe, the merest savages.

[379] The modern Hindus call steel _Paldah_, from the Persian _Pulád_,

the Arab. _Fulád_. They apply to Spanish steel the terms _Ispát_,

_Sukhela_ and _Tolad_. Their favourite trial of Sword-metal is with a

bar of soft gold, which should leave a streak.

[380] Colonel Yule does not consider the word genuine, and with reason,

as the Indo-Phœnician (‘Safá’) alphabet has no _w_ and no _z_. The

word first appears in ‘Experiments and Observations to investigate the

Nature of a Kind of Steel manufactured at Bombay, and there called

_Wootz_,’ ... by G. Pearson, M.D. (paper read before the Royal Soc.,

June 11, 1795). He notes that ‘Dr. Scott of Bombay, in a letter to

the President, acquainted him that he had sent over “specimens of a

substance known by the name of wootz, which is considered to be a

kind of steel, and is in high esteem among the Indians”’ (p. 322). In

Wilkinson’s _Engines of War_ (1841) we read (pp. 203–206), ‘The cakes

of steel are called _wootz_.’

Dr. E. Balfour states that _uchhá_ and _níchhá_ (in Hindustani ‘high’

and ‘low’) are used in the Canarese provinces to denote superior and

inferior descriptions of articles, and that _Wootz_ may be a corruption

of the former. Colonel Yule and his coadjutor in the _Glossary of

Indian Terms_, the late lamented Dr. Burnell, hold that it originated

in some clerical error or misreading, perhaps from _wook_ representing

the Canarese _ukku_ = steel.

[381]

C. {combined 1·333

{uncombined 0·312

Si. 0·045

S. 0·181

As. 0·037

Fe. (by difference) 98·092

———————

100·000

Phillips, _Metallurgy_, p. 317. Faraday found in Wootz 0·0128–0·0695

per cent. of aluminium, and attributed the ‘damask’ of the blades to

its presence. Karsten, after three experiments, and Mr. T. H. Henry,

failed to detect it, and suggested that it may have been derived from

intermingled slag containing silicate of alumina (Percy, _Iron, &c._

pp. 183–84).

[382] _Archiv. Port. Oriental._ fascic. iii. p. 318.

[383] M. Keller (_Pres. Soc. Ant. Switz._) notes that crudely formed

lumps and quadrangular blocks of malleable iron, double pyramids

weighing 10–16 lbs., have been found in prehistoric sites. They were

probably produced in primitive Catalans. Pieces of iron slag worked by

the Kelts were discovered in 1862 on the Cheviot Hills.

[384] The cupel (of old copel) is the French _coupelle_, little coupe.

The muffle is a metal cupel.

[385] This is the process of working Wootz given by Mr. Heath; others

pack the metal with finely-chopped stalks of asclepias as well as

cassia. Mr. Mallet has described the Indian manufacture of large iron

masses in _The Engineer_, vol. xxxiii. pp. 19, 20. Beckmann (_loc.

cit. sub v._ ‘Steel’) notices the bloomeries or furnaces. The _Penny

Cyclopædia_ and Ure’s _Dict. of Chemistry_ (the latter the best),

London, Longmans, 1839, may also be consulted. Dr. Percy gives a

long account (pp. 254–66) of iron-smelting in India from Mr. Howard

Blackwell. He notes three kinds of furnaces:—

1. Rude, like chimney-pots; used by the hill-tribes of Western

India, the Deccan, and the Carnatic.

2. Simple Catalan forge } Central India and the

3. Early form of Stückofen } N.W. Provinces.

The anvil is a square iron without beak. Three kinds of Indian bellows

are noticed (pp. 255–56). The people, who love _stare super antiquas

vias_, ignore the hot blast: this contrivance causes a more active

combustion, an ‘ultimate fact’ as yet unexplained.

[386] Report of 1852.

[387] The dialect is much more ancient than we usually suppose:

it existed long before Akbar the Great and his ‘Urdú zabán’ (camp

language), for we find that the poet Chand wrote in it during the

twelfth century.

[388] As will appear in Part II. there are many processes for making

the Damascus; the exact markings, however, are best produced by that

noticed above.

[389] Pp. 270–3, from the descriptions of Mr. W. T. Blanford, of the

Geol. Survey of India.

[390] Pp. 273–5; borrowed from _Travels in Borneo_, by Dr. C. A. L. M.

Schauer during 1843–47, p. 109.

[391] The Swords of the Borneo Dyaks and the islanders of Timor and

Rotti are photographed by the Curator of the Christy Collection.

[392] Mr. Day quotes, book i., the Tribute of Yu, Legge’s _Chinese

Classics_, vol. iii. part i. p. 121 (Trübner, London, 1865).

[393] The ‘Celestial Empire,’ according to her annals, began B.C.

100,000–80,000; the date being probably astronomical, or rather

astrological, founded, like the four Hindu æras, upon retrograde

calculations. The first cycle of 60 years is attributed to the Emperor

Hwang-tí, and its initiation to the 61st year of his reign, in B.C.

2637 (the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt?). The first historical dates are

given in B.C. 651, a century after the foundation of Rome: these

figures afford a curious contrast between pretensions and proof. But as

Englishmen after long residence ‘grow black’ in Africa, and have become

semi-Hinduised in India, so in China they have allowed themselves

to be imposed upon by the ‘magna fabulositas,’ the marvellous

self-sufficiency of astute semi-barbarians. ‘China is a sea that salts

all the rivers which flow into it.’ Yet I am curious to ascertain

by actual travel if China ever possessed a centre of civilisation

independent of what she received from the West; in other words,

non-Egyptian.

[394] Of the 214 keys or radicals. The first three arithmetical figures

are lines disposed horizontally, while the Egyptians wrote them

vertically. In his Terminal Table (affixed to this chapter) Mr. Day

assigns Chinese to the ‘Sporadic or Allophyllian family.’ I believe it

to be the oldest and, as far as we know, the original form of Turanian

speech, a kind of _tertium quid_ deduced from the so-called ‘Aryan’ and

‘Semitic’ elements of Egyptian.

[395] _Trans. Bib. Archæol._ 1879. Sayce’s _Grammar_ gives 522 Assyrian

characters.

[396] The lump of iron worked into a mass more or less rectangular

is called a bloom, from the Saxon _bloma_, metal in mass (Bosworth):

_Bloma ferri_ occurs in the Domesday Book. Hence ancient furnaces were

called _bloomeries_; the Elizabethan spelling is a _bloomary_. The

blooms were beaten out to bars.

[397] In Persia I was told that this was one of the ‘secrets’ of making

the finest Khorasáni blades.

[398] It followed the Mongols and preceded the Manchow Tartars, who

still reign.

[399] This process of converting iron to steel is first described in

‘_Alchemiæ Gebri_ (El-Gabr), _Arabis philosophi solertissimi, Libri,

&c._, Joan. Petreius Nurembergen̄. denuo Bernæ excudi faciebat. anno

1545.’ The Arab, known to Albertus Magnus, flourished in the eighth

to the ninth century. According to Beckmann, he noticed the ore

_cineritii_ (cupellation) _et cementi_ (cementation) _tolerans_. The

mixture is usually of sal ammoniac, borax, alum, and fine salt: the

many varieties are described by Percy, Ure, and a host of others.

Compare also Ure’s account of cast-steel and of shear-steel, the latter

so called because cloth-shears were forged of it.

[400] At least it would so appear from the following passage (p. 176):

‘When we examine the etymology of ‘pole,’ or ‘pillar,’ thus—Saxon,

_pol_ or _pal_; German, _Pfahl_; Danish, _paal_ or _pol_; Swedish,

_pale_; Welsh _pawl_—we arrive at the Latin _palus_, which, besides

signifying a pole or stake, is also the φαλλός of the Greeks,

_Mahadeva_ (?) or _Linga_ (?) of the Hindoos, _Bel_ or _Baal_ (?)

of the Chaldeans, _Yakhveh_ (?) of the Canaanites, _Ti-mohr_ of the

ancient Irish, and _Teih-mo_ of the Chinese,’ &c.

[401] _Notes from Mr. Henderson’s Diary during a Ramble through Shansi,

in March 1874_, published by Mr. Day (Appendix D, p. 251). Colonel

Yule (_Marco Polo_, ii. 429), alluding to these enormous deposits of

coal and metal, says: ‘Baron Richtofen, in the paper which we quote

from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of the world’s wealth

and power, to which such facts, combined with other characteristics of

China, point as probable; a revolution so vast that its contemplation

seems like that of a planetary catastrophe.’

[402] _Les Mondes_, tome xxvi., Dec. 1871.

[403] _Polynesian Researches_ (Rev. William Ellis).

[404] _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_, p. 167.

[405] Unless greatly mistaken, I have seen iron tools made of hæmatite

near the old Gongo Socco gold-mines of Minas Geraes, in the Brazil.

Worked hæmatite is also mentioned in Cyprus by General Palma (di

Cesnola). See chap. ix.

[406] From _Nature_ (Sept. 30, 1875); quoted by Mr. Day (pp. 217–19).

[407] _Flint Chips_, by Edmund T. Stevens, p. 553 (London: Bell &

Daldy, 1870).

[408] The ‘plummet’ is figured (No. cxxxii.) in the _American

Naturalist_ (vol. vi. p. 643).

[409] The people of Camarones River, Bight of Biafra, work up old cask

and bale hoops into very creditable edge-tools and weapons, hoes,

knives, and Swords (Rev. G. Grenfell, _Proc. Roy. Geolog. Soc._ Oct.

1882).

[410] The origin of the modern process is still debated. Agricola

(_nat._ 1494, _ob._ 1555) notices both malleable and cast iron.

Dr. Percy (p. 578) quotes from Mr. M. A. Lower (_Contributions to

Literature, &c._ 1854) that Burwash Church, Sussex, contains a

cast-iron slab of the fourteenth century with ornamental cross and

inscription in relief. The same authority declares that iron cannon

were first cast at Buxted (Buckstead in Sussex) by Philip Hoge or Hogge

in 1543 (35 Henry VIII.); and that his successor, Thomas Johnson, made

ordnance pieces for the Duke of Cumberland weighing 6,000 lbs.

[411] Dr. Percy (pp. 764 _et seq._) notices the three processes of

making steel (iron containing carbon in certain proportions): 1. The

addition of carbon to malleable iron; 2. The partial decarburisation of

cast iron; and 3. The addition of malleable iron to cast iron.

[412] I borrow from O Muata Cazembe (Kazembe, the King) a rude sketch

(p. 38) of one of the better kinds of iron-smelting furnaces used by

the extensive Maráve race dwelling north of the Zambeze (River of

Fish), which Europeans persist in miswriting _Zambesi_. The bellows, it

will be remarked, are almost of European shape; but this peculiarity

may be attributed to the artist.

[413] _Travels_, pp. 275–77 (London, 1749).

[414] Colonel A. Lane Fox (_Prim. Warfare_, i. 38) believes that the

‘Fans and Kafirs (Caffres) are totally different races.’ But both

speak dialects of the same tongue, the great South African language.

Modern African travellers have traced community of customs from north

to south, and from east to west, suggesting extensive intercourse, in

former days, throughout the length and breadth of the Dark Continent.

[415] _Across Africa_, chap. xix., July 1874 (Daldy, Isbister & Co.,

London, 1877).

[416] _Missionary Travels_, p. 402 (London, 1857).

[417] _Anthrop. Coll._ pp. 128–134. ‘Specimens illustrating the

geographical distribution of corrugated iron blades, or blades with an

ogee section, double skin bellows, and iron work.’ As regards the ogee

section, the author should have compared it with the arrow-heads whose

plane sides are ‘bellied on a twist’ to cause rotation or rifling.

[418] Diogenes Laertius tells us of Anacharsis only that he ‘wrote also

about war.’

[419] As all savage races show, the original anchor was a stone first

bound round like a celt, and then pierced for a rope: hence the

‘fugitive stone’ used by the Argonauts as an anchor (Pliny, xxxvii.

24). In the spring of 1880 eight stone anchors of modern shape were

found in Piræus harbour, and were sent to the Nautical School at Athens.

[420] Wilkinson, i. 174. Mr. Day, pp. 86, 87.

[421] Hence, too, we see our ‘bellows’ = ‘bellies.’