58 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
In Crawford’s **Indian Archipelago” occurs the following passage :— 
* « Among the savages of all nations we find the use of the club, the 
sling, and the bow and arrow, the first and universal weapons of all man- 
kind.t To these the Indian islanders add the tube for discharging arrows, 
which are sometimes poisoned with a prepared vegetable juice. The 
Balinese are the only tribe, in any degree civilized, which retains the 
general use of this practice. The more powerful nations have long since 
given it up, we may presume rather from an experience of its inefficacy, 
than from any conviction of the immorality or baseness of the practice. 
The Javanese historians, in rendering an account of a war conducted by the 
Sultan of Mataram, against the people of Bali and Blamlangan, as long ago 
as the year 1639, mention the use of poisoned arrows on the part of the 
former, as an extraordinary circumstance new to their countrymen, and 
which excited at first some alarm. In the use of the bow and arrow, and 
the sling, I do not discover that the Indian islanders have acquired any 
extraordinary dexterity. The Javanese are extremely fond of the exercise 
of the bow and arrow as an amusement (sitting, not standing, when drawing 
the bow), but are anything but skilful in the use of it, and seldom succeed 
in throwing the arrow above a dozen yards. In the attack upon the palace 
of the Sultan of Java, in 1812, the Javanese threw stones from slings in 
great numbers, but without inflicting a serious wound, or even dangerous 
contusion, in the period of two days. The knowledge of iron must soon 
have in a great measure suspended the use of these less perfect weapons, 
and given rise to that of the spear and kris. These may be justly styled 
the favourite weapons of the Indian islanders.” That arrows were once 
freely used, is shown in the romances founded by the Javanese on Hindu 
story or mythology.t 
In Africa the bow is used by the Nubians—whose women twist the 
hair into the numberless tiny plaits commonly seen among the Western 
Pacific islanders—the Hottentots or Bushmen who use the barbed and 
poisoned arrow, and other tribes, authorities for whose names I have 
not consulted. Livingstone, in one of his works,§ gives the following :— 
* Poisoned arrows are made in two pieces. An iron barb is firmly 
fastened to one end of a small wand of wood, ten inches or a foot long, the 
other end of which, fined down to a long point, is nicely fitted, though not 
otherwise secured, in the hollow of the reed, which forms the arrow-shaft. 
The wood, immediately below the head, is smeared with the poison. When 
the arrrow is shot into an animal the reed either falls to the ground at once, 
*-Vol Lp: 222. 
t Note.—This does not appear to apply to the people of Australia or the Esquimaux. 
ł Crawford: Vol. IL, p. 25. $ ** The Zambesi," p- 466, 
