528 Sir Ralph Fayne-GalUvey, Bart, [May 29, 



Though confusing accounts of how to do this act are to be found 

 in various old Oriental manuals on archery, the figure on the vase, 

 being an actual illustration from life, was the real origin of my 

 learning the proper method. 



Unlike those of European nations, the arrows of the Orientals 

 were very highly finished, their shafts being often lacquered in red 

 and gold, and their metal heads damascened. The short pliable bow- 

 string, made of many lengths of silk, and with a hard noose of sinew 

 at each of its ends, was admirably adapted for strangulation, formerly 

 a common form of execution in Turkey ! 



I may add, that in warfare one arrow with a wide sharp-bladed 

 head, the shape of a crescent, was usually carried by the archer for 

 the purpose of severing the tendon Achilles of any prisoner who tried 

 to escape. Some of the Oriental arrows were truly horrible, for their 

 small barbed heads were loosely attached to their shafts, so as to 

 disconnect when a stricken soldier tried to extract the missile from 

 his body ! The shaft he easily plucked out, but the barbed point 

 remained in the wound, and, being impossible to extract, caused a 

 cruel and lingering death . 



The elasticity and unbreakable nature of the Oriental bow allowed 

 the archer to draw its string back to such an extent that the ends of 

 the bow almost appeared to meet ! He was thus able to use an arrow 

 in warfare that was long and heavy in comparison to his bow, which 

 was short and light in itself and well adapted to mounted men. 



Ulysses was armed with a composite bow that bent in this way 

 and which was made from the horns of a wild goat. Strange to 



say, recent excavations have proved that bows made of goats' horns 

 were formerly used in Minoan Crete of precisely the same construction 

 as the bow Homer so graphically tells us Ulysses handled when he 

 killed one by one the insolent suitors of his wife. Homer's descrip- 

 tion of the bow of Pandarus is another excellent reference to a 

 composite bow, for we read, as rendered by the translator : — 



" 'Twas formed of horn and smoothed with artful toil 

 A mountain goat resigned the shining spoil 

 The workmen joined and shaped the bended horns, 

 And beaten gold each taper point adorns 

 Now with full force the yielding bow he bends 

 Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends." 



The Cross-boiv, — From the single-bow it is a natural transition to 

 the cross-bow. The cross-bow was undoubtedly used by the ancient 

 Romans, and is alluded to by their military historians as a hand 

 weapon, and, on a much larger scale, for siege purposes. 



From the fifth to the tenth century, cross-bows are very seldom 

 mentioned, but from the middle of the tenth century it was a common 

 arm in warfare. 



This continued to be the case, even though its employment was 

 forbidden by the second Lateran Council in 1139, under penalty of 



