Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/162

 The sword has come to be regarded as essentially the weapon of the bushi, but in the early centuries it does not seem to have occupied as important a place for fighting purposes as the bow. The sacred sword which formed one of the three regalia of Japan, was a straight, two-edged weapon (tsurugi), but the distinctive Japanese sword, the well-known katana, is a single-edged blade, remarkable for its three exactly similar curves—edge, face-line, and back—its almost imperceptibly convexed cutting edge, its fine tempering, its incomparable sharpening, its beautiful and highly skilled forging, and its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum effect of stroke. If the Japanese had never produced anything but this sword, they would still deserve to be credited with a remarkable faculty for detecting the subtle causes of practical effects, and translating them with delicate accuracy into obdurate material. The tenth century saw this unequalled weapon carried to completion, and some have inferred that only from that era did the bushi begin to esteem his sword the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent and long-existing demand. The katana came in the sequel of innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese