Arrow (weapon)

“ In modern times the long-bow has become a toy, but, even as such, shows itself capable of more accuracy than the musket had. That flying shots were not impossible with either the long-bow or cross-bow has often been proved, and there is one well-known instance where a swallow on the wing was pierced by an arrow, and remained upon it about half-way down the shaft. But when the arrow was a weapon of war the minimum distance for practice for a man was 220 yards, and the flight of an arrow then was very far beyond the powers of the toy bow now used in the pretty game of archery. ”

“ The bow is always a very short and apparently insignificant weapon, being mostly used on horseback. It scarcely ever exceeds three feet in length, and is mostly six inches shorter, so that it looks more like a child’s toy than a weapon fit for a warrior’s hand. Yet, with this apparently feeble bow, the American Indian can drive an arrow completely through a man, and some of their best hunters are known to have sent their arrows fairly through the body of a bison, so that the missile fell on the ground after passing through the huge animal. ”

“ It seems legitimate with this rudimentary weapon to shoot animals on the stand, or set, a sporting permit not granted to the devotee of the shotgun, who has a hundred chances to our one.
We found from the very first that the arrow was more humane than the gun. Counting all hunters, for every animal brought home with the gun, whether duck, quail, or deer, at least two are hit and die in pain in the brush. ”

“ It is also futile to prophesy the future of the bow and arrow. As an implement of the chase, to us it seems to hold a place unique for fairness. And in the further development of the wild game problem, where apparently large game preserves and refuges will be the order of the day, the bow is a more fitting weapon with which to slay a beast than a gun or any more powerful agent that may be invented. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that an arrow head merely made from a hollow bamboo stem, and retaining the hollow shape, must be a most formidable weapon, and inflict a very dangerous wound. It is brittle, fragile, and would shiver to pieces against a shield or defensive armor of even moderate strength, but against the naked bodies of the Indians it is a most effective weapon. ”

“ He begins by wrapping a quantity of cotton wool round the arrows just behind the head, and when he has treated them all in this way, he strikes a light and sets fire to the cotton wool on one of the arrows. Lying on his back, he holds the bow with the toes of both feet, and, laying the blazing arrow in its place, he is able to use both his hands to draw the powerful weapon. He shoots with a wonderfully good aim and great rapidity, so that when a number of Indians surround a village, and pour their fiery missiles into it from all directions, the houses are sure to take fire. ”

“ During the Norman period the infantry as a rule were armed with the bow, but the other weapons they bore were considered of equal if not greater usefulness and importance in battle, owing probably to the undeveloped condition of the weapon. With the advent, however, of the long-bow proper, and the invention of the arbalest, the deadly effect of the arrow and the quarrel began to be fully recognised and accepted, and changes consequently occurred in the art of warfare occasioned by the adoption of these weapons. ”

“ A simultaneously invented missile would be the hurling or throwing-stick and its modification, the Boomerang, of which I have still to speak. The application of elasticity and resilience being now well known, would suggest the rudest form of the bow [58] and arrow. This invention, next in importance (though longo intervallo) to fire-making and fire-feeding, is the first crucial evidence of the distinction between the human weapon and the bestial arm. Nilsson and many others hold the invention to have been instinctive and common to all peoples ”

“ Given, a well-made weapon of Spanish or Italian yew, and arrows of the best modern make, and the accuracy of the bow is measured only by the skill of the shooter. If he can loose his arrow truly, it will hit the mark; more than that can be said of no weapon. That a rifleman will shoot more accurately at ranges well within the power of the bow than an archer of similar skill is certain ”

“ The spear when projected from the throwing-stick forms as effectual a weapon as the bow and arrow, whilst at the same time it is much less liable to be injured, and it possesses over the bow and arrow the advantage of being useful to poke out kangaroo-rats and opossums from hollow trees, to knock off gum from high branches, to pull down the cones from the Banksia trees, and for many other purposes.
The hatchet is used to cut up the larger kinds of game and to make holes in the trees the owner is about to climb. ”

“ First, the bow and arrow in the hands of skillful warriors proves very deadly; it makes no noise, and for night attacks or the taking off of sentinels, is far superior to the gun. Secondly, it is the best weapon that can be used in the chase, or, more properly, on the hunt, as half a dozen animals may be slain in a herd before their comrades are made aware of the fact. ”

“ In shooting for distance, of course, a very light missile is used, and nothing but empirical tests can determine the shape, size, and weight that suits each bow. Consequently, we use hundreds of arrows to find the best. For more than seven years these experiments have continued, and at this stage of our progress the best flight arrow is made of Japanese bamboo five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, having a foreshaft of birch the same diameter and four inches long. The nock is a boxwood plug inserted in the rear end, both joints being bound with silk floss and shellacked. ”

“ The striking force of a one-ounce arrow shot from a seventy-five pound bow at ten yards, is twenty-five foot pounds. This test is made by shooting at a cake of paraffin and comparing the penetration with that made by falling weights. Such a striking force is, of course, insignificant when compared with that of a modern bullet, viz., three thousand foot pounds. Yet the damage done by an arrow armed with a sharp steel broad-head is often greater than that done by a bullet, as we shall see later on. ”

“ These muscles grew on English soil, and the visible death sheaves that hurtled from them, struck terror into the foe from the distance he could not reach in return. The modern leaden bullet strikes without notice, from amidst the smoke and noise—the ancient arrow flashed its mission as it flew. ”

“ The fire-arrow, dard à feu, is a small iron dart furnished with springs and bars, together with a match, impregnated with powder and sulphur, which is wound about its shaft. It is intended to fire the sails of the enemy, and is for this purpose discharged from a musketoon or swivel-gun. The match being kindled by the explosion, communicates the flame to the sail against which it is directed, where the arrow is fastened by means of its bars and springs. ”

“ Every rifle expert knows what his gun is capable of, in accuracy, and an archer should know just what to expect of an arrow under the most favorable conditions. We therefore tried shooting the same arrow over the same course with the same release, under these fairly stable conditions: The day was calm. We shot an arrow ten times in succession and all the shots centered in a six inch bull's-eye; that is, none went out of a circle of this diameter. In other words, at sixty yards a bow can shoot arrows with an error of dispersion of no more than six inches. ”

“ The war arrow differs from that used for hunting, in having a barbed spear-head, very slightly attached to the wood, so that if it penetrate the body of an enemy, it cannot be withdrawn without leaving the point in the wound. ”

“ Poisoned weapons retain their destructive qualities for years, and should therefore be handled with extreme caution.
A square of paper, folded diagonally across, may be used as a “feather” for a blowpipe arrow. Wild cotton is also used to make the arrow fit the tube.
A cross-bow of peculiar construction is used by the Chinese; the action of the trigger is sufficiently simple to need no explanation, and the chief peculiarity consists in the fact of its having a kind of reservoir above the barrel, in which half a dozen or more arrows or bolts lie one upon the other ”

“ For the longer ranges lighter arrows are used. The Scottish clout was a piece of canvas, stretched on a frame; the range 180 or 200 yds.; all arrows counted one that were within 24 ft. of the target, the clout counting two. Modern archers have paid scant attention to mere distance-shooting, which is an art of its own, but their experiments prove that with a fairly heavy bow, say 60 ℔ or 63 ℔, and a long light arrow, known as a “flight arrow,” a good archer should be able to reach 300 or 310 yds. With a heavier bow, properly under control, 50 or 60 yds. might be added to this by a strong man. ”

“ The use of spring traps of boughs, of switches to fillip small missiles with, and of the remarkable darts of the Pelew Islands, bent and made to fly by their own spring, indicate inventions which may have led to that of the bow, while the arrow is a miniature form of the javelin. The practice of poisoning arrows, after the manner of stings and serpents’ fangs, is no civilized device, but a characteristic of lower life, which is generally discarded even at the barbaric stage. ”

“ Dick said perhaps the plain arrows were for shooting at a target, but the barbed ones for killing things.
“I expect,” said Uncle John, “that the barbed arrows were used in battle. A barbed arrow cannot be plucked out of a wound, and so it is more deadly than the other. The plain arrows were generally used in hunting. When a man had shot a deer or a hare, he wanted to be able to pull out his arrow at once and use it again, but a barbed arrow sticks in the wound and cannot be pulled out.” ”

“ The effects produced by weapons and instruments are thought of in the same manner. We say that an arrow is shot from a bow with such force as to penetrate the body and cause a wound. The savage could not think or speak in this way, because he had no verbs and could not think of nouns in the objective case. He thought of the arrow as an animate thing having a cutting or piercing quality. When placed in a suitable position to exercise its powers, it flew, of its own volition, through the air to the target, and communicated to it by contact some of the above quality. ”

“ Not only is the destructive power as great as a small bullet, but the shaft holds the animal so that it cannot escape. Practically none are lost in our hunts. A strange phenomenon is seen in larger animals; they are easier to kill with an arrow than small ones. A shot in either the chest or abdominal cavity of a deer is invariably fatal in a few minutes; while a rabbit may carry an arrow off until the obstructing undergrowth checks his flight. ”

“ And in discharging them the string shoots them out with enormous violence and force, and whatever these darts chance to hit, they do not fall back, but they pierce through a shield, then cut through a heavy iron corselet and wing their way through and out at the other side. So violent and ineluctable is the discharge of arrows of this kind. Such an arrow has been known to pierce a bronze statue, and if it hits the wall of a very large town, the point of the arrow either protrudes on the inner side or it buries itself in the middle of the wall and is lost. ”

“ The body of the arrow is now complete, and all that is required is to add the poison which makes it so formidable. The poison, which is first reduced to the consistency of glue, is spread thickly over the entire head of the arrow, including the base of the head. Before it has dried, a short spike of iron or quill is pushed into it, the point being directed backward, so as to form a barb. If the arrow strikes a human being, and he pulls it out of the wound, the iron blade, which is but loosely attached to the head, is nearly sure to come off and remain in the wound. ”

“ From a safer distance the artillery of the time is hurling its formidable missiles. There is the "catapult," which shoots a giant arrow, sometimes tipped with material on fire, from a groove or half-tube to a distance of a quarter of a mile. The propelling force, in default of gunpowder or other explosive, is the recoil of strings of gut or hair which have been tightened by a windlass. ”

“ So when men wish to shoot at the enemy with this, they make the parts of the bow which form the ends bend toward one another by means of a short rope fastened to them, and they place in the grooved shaft the arrow, which is about one half the length of the ordinary missiles which they shoot from bows, but about four times as wide. ”

“ A standard English target arrow rotates during flight six complete revolutions every twenty yards, or approximately fifteen times a second. Heavy hunting shafts turn more slowly. This was ascertained by shooting two arrows at once from the same bow, their shafts being connected by a silk thread, so that one paid off as the other wound up the thread. ”

“ The spear, the arrow from the bow, or the bolt from the catapult and other engines can be driven into the body of only one man, while the iron cannon-ball fired through the air, can go through the bodies of many men, and there is no marble or stone object so hard that it cannot be shattered by the force and shock. ”