10 SOUTH AFRICA. 



tempted me while out with the bow, and once I 

 tried a long pull at a huge pig, which fell to the 

 shot However, I sought the irate owner and 

 got out of the scrape by paying rather more than 

 the value of the animal. 



Experience proved to me that many of the 

 marvellous feats attributed to ancient archers, 

 disbelieved in by modern votaries of the art, are 

 nevertheless approximately true, making, of course, 

 a little occasional allowance for an abnormal pull 

 at the " long bow " by the historians. If any 

 modern archer should read this, he will know that 

 a bow with a pull of between fifty and sixty 

 pounds is quite as strong as an average man can 

 effectually use, but it must be allowed that practice 

 is now only occasional, and merely intended to 

 facilitate " hits " at the target, whereas not only 

 accuracy but range were desiderata when the bow 

 was a weapon of war, and the art of shooting was 

 practised with a view to the attainment of success 

 on those lines. By practice I eventually found 

 that a bow of ninety-five pounds draw was quite 

 within manageable limits ; that a range of four 

 hundred yards could be attained ; and that at forty 

 or fifty yards an arrow with a square pyramidal 



