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AUGUST, 1878.]
shapes, short and lengthened, rounded, three- or four-sided, channelled, or bulging in the centre; many were barbed, and many flat-tipped or ending in small globes,-perhaps for killing birds without breaking the skin; and there were some headed with hollow brass balls perforated with three or four holes, which were said to be filled with some inflammable composition and shot burning on to roofs and into houses. (See No. 13, on the accompanying plate of Old Hindu ArrowHeads.) Under the head each arrow was elaborately gilt and painted for six inches down the stem, and also for the same length above the nock, and each bore above the feathers an inscription of two lines in Marathi characters, in gold.
ARCHEOLOGICAL NOTES.
But besides the arrows there were extraordinary quantities of detached heads embedded in the mud of the floor, apparently of more antique types and still more fantastic forms, some not a little elegant: for example,-No. 4 on the same plate,-two paroquets joined beak to beak and breast to breast, their tails meeting in the point; No. 12, a flat blade with both edges rippled; No. 10, a double prong with barbed points; Nos. 3, 5, 6, 9, and 16,-several heads broad and tapering to a point, with curious openwork centres, sometimes all the centre open, the head indeed being merely a steel rim drawn to a point; these open-work heads were declared to be peculiarly dangerous, the flesh closing into them, and rendering extrication very painful. Some long spike-heads (Nos. 8, 14, and 15) were grooved on the sides or roughened under the point, for the purpose, it was said, of carrying glutinous poison. There were also crescentheads (Nos. 1 and 7), a very antique form, used in the Roman circus-games; with such an arrow Anantaguna-Pandion, the king of Madurâ, is said to have destroyed an Asura sent in the form of a striped serpent by the Samunals or Jains to devour the inhabitants of Madurâ. Some small elegant heads inlaid in gold (No. 11), with an elephant and monograms, appeared intended for royal use. A considerable number of the large heavy arrow-heads used by native huntsmen was also found, some four or six inches long and more than an inch wide. Several were identical in form with arrow-heads brought by Commander Cameron from the interior of Africa; a barb with only one tang is common to both continents, and so is the crescent shape.
The demand for blades of European make
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formerly existing in India seems rather strange when it is remembered how skilful Indian smiths were, and how famous Indian steel has been from remote antiquity. The workmanship of the native hilts can scarcely be surpassed, and it might be supposed that the smiths who made them could also have forged blades as good as those of Earopean origin which they actually bear; moreover, the districts of Salem, Koimbatur, and North Arkat, in which the best Indian steel has been manufactured from time immemorial, are almost contiguous to Tanjor, where so great a collection of European weapons had been assembled, and the name of Arunâchellam of Salem has been known all over India for the last fifty years: the shikárknives and spear-heads made by him could not be excelled, hardly equalled, in temper and finish by any English smith, and the same might be said of him in all iron and steel work wrought by hand. It is in this region that the famous ferrum Indicum was probably produced, a hundred talents of which was held a fitting present to Alexander the Great: for, though the now well-known fusing and smelting process is said to be practised all over India, it is in these southern districts that the ore is richest and most magnetic, and hence the much-prized grey-steel ingots, whose production was so long a puzzle to the scientific, were exported far and wide to Damascus and Europe. There are many casual allusions which show how highly Indian steel was estimated in antiquity; for example, Clemens Alexandrinus, discoursing of luxury, observes, "One can cut meat without Indian iron." And when, in venturing some remarks (Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 239) upon the occurrence of Roman coins in the neighbourhood of aqua-marina mines in Koimbatur, and observing that I knew of nothing they were likely to have been used in purchasing except the gems, I might have added the steel so abundant and excellent both there and in the bordering district, Salem. When at the end of the past century some pieces of Indian steel were sent to the Royal Society, none could conjecture the method of their preparation, and it remained long unknown; even now somewhat of the more delicate manipulation is a secret amongst the native smiths, but the general method is understood, and may be read, well described, in Ure's Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures, art. 'Steel,'
