Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/26

MARATHA tons of rusty arms and weapons, in confused heaps, coated and caked together with thick rust. Hundreds of swords, straight, curved and ripple-edged, many beautifully damascened and inlaid with hunting or battle scenes in gold; many broad blades with long inscriptions in Marāthi or Kanarese characters, and some so finely tempered as to bend and quiver like whalebone. There were long gauntlet-hilts, brass or steel, in endless devices, hilts inlaid with gold, and hilts and guards of the most tasteful and elaborate steel -work. There were long-bladed swords and executioners' swords, two-handed, thick-backed, and immensely heavy. Daggers, knives, and poniards by scores, of all imaginable and almost unimaginable shapes, double and triple-bladed; some with pistols or spring-blades concealed in their handles, and the hilts of many of the kuttars of the most beautiful and elaborate pierced steel- work, in endless devices, rivalling the best medieval European metal-work. There was a profusion of long narrow thin-bladed knives, mostly with bone or ivory handles very prettily carved, ending in parrot-heads and the like, or the whole handle forming a bird or monster, with legs and wings pressed close to the body, all exquisitely carved. The use of these seemed problematical; some said they were used to cut fruit, others that they had been poisoned and struck about the roofs and walls of the women's quarters, to serve the purpose of spikes or broken glass! A curious point was the extraordinary number of old European blades, often graven with letters and symbols of Christian meaning, attached to hilts and handles most distinctly Hindu, adorned with figures of gods and idolatrous emblems. There was an extraordinary number of long straight cut-and-thrust blades termed Phirangis, which Mr. Sinclair, in his interesting list of Dakhani