1883.] on the Forms and History of the Sivord. 385 



learnt the ways of the point also. Let us take the earlier stage first, 

 as shown in the cutting swords of the East. Broadly speaking, their 

 characteristic feature is a decidedly ciirved blade as opposed to the 

 straight or nearly straight European form. Not that all old European 

 swords are straight, or all Eastern swords curved. There are curved 

 blades of mediseval and even earlier times (one prehistoric example is 

 in the Copenhagen Museum), and one remarkable type of Indian sword, 

 the Mahratta gauntlet sword (Pata), is quite straight ; but the contrast 

 holds good in the main. The object of curvature is to gain cutting 

 power. When a straight sword strikes its object full, the direction of 

 the stroke is at right angles to the length of the blade ; and the amount 

 of resistance, for a given velocity of stroke and substance to be cut, is 

 measured by the acuteness of the angle shown by a transverse section 

 of the cutting blade. The finer this angle, the less the resistance. In 

 the case of an instrument not intended to bear rough usage or cut hard 

 bodies, or much of any substance at one stroke (as a razor), it is only 

 a question of workmanship how fine the angle can be made. But with 

 a sword it is otherwise. Without a certain amount of thickness, the 

 best steel blade would be too fragile or too flexible, so that in practice 

 the limit up to which its cutting power can be increased by fining 

 down the edge is soon reached. But now let the blow be delivered in 

 a direction not at right angles, but oblique to the axis of the blade. 

 The angle of resistance will then be given by an oblique section of 

 the blade, and in proportion to the obliquity it will be finer than the 

 angle of a straight cross section. It is on exactly the same principle 

 that the steepness of a road or path on a mountain side is diminished 

 by giving it a zigzag course. With a straight edge this efiect can be 

 produced by what is called a drawing cut. But it is far more simply 

 and certainly produced by giving a permanent curvature to the edge 

 in the part where the stroke falls. A weapon thus formed cannot 

 help presenting an oblique section of the blade in the act of cutting, 

 and therefore will cut better than a straight weapon of similar trans- 

 verse section. This is the principle of all curved swords, exemplified 

 in the choice Persian blades, in the common Indian sabre (Talwar), 

 and in the light cavalry sword of almost identical pattern which was 

 used in our own service in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. 

 Near the hilt the blade is nearly straight, but towards the centre of 

 percussion it bends rapidly away. This effect is enhanced by 

 mounting the sword so that the initial direction of the blade, from 

 which the curve falls back, makes a sensible angle vnth the line of 

 direction of the hilt, and goes before it to meet the object struck at ; 

 in the sword-smith's terms, by making the edge "lead forward." 

 Hence the elegant double curve made by the blade and hilt of the 

 Persian sabre. The same rule is followed, though less obviously, by 

 the most recent European patterns. In Japanese swords it is reversed, 

 for some reason which I have never seen explained. 



The use of a curved blade is of unknown antiquity in the East. 

 Its most ancient form was probably short, and broader at the point 



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