The Turkish bow, being so short, necessitates a great effort of strength on the part of the archer to bend it between his legs and, at the same time, stoop down to fit the bow-string. From constant practice, the Turk of former days knew exactly how and when to apply the muscular force of leg and arm necessary to string his bow--a performance that no modern archer could accomplish with a bow of any strength. Leg and manual force combined is the only possible method of stringing a strong reflex bow, unless mechanical power is utilised: it was the hereditary custom of the Orientals. In the operation, there is always the risk of twisting the limbs of the bow, from a lack of the great strength of wrist required to hold them straight during the stringing. If the limbs of the bow are given the slightest lateral twist as they are being bent, the horn parts are certain to splinter, and the bow is then useless and damaged beyond repair.[45] [Page 110] [45] The only safe method for a modern archer to adopt in order to string a powerful reflex bow is to use strong upright pegs, the size of tent pegs, inserted in smooth ground or in holes in a board, the bow resting during the process flat along the ground or board. Insert one peg against the inner face of the handle of the bow and then pull the ends of the bow back by degrees, placing a peg behind each of its ends as you do so to retain them in their acquired positions. The outer pegs can be shifted towards you as the bow is gradually bent, first at its one end and then at its other one. Finally, when the bow is fully bent, the bow-string can be fitted across it from nock to nock and the pegs removed. To unstring the bow, grasp its extremities and, with the palms of the hands uppermost, bend it slightly across the knee, at the same time shifting with the thumb one of the loops of the bow-string out of its nock. The difficulty of reversing and stringing a very stiff bow with such a reflex curve that its ends nearly meet before it is bent may be imagined. De Busbecq tells us that some of the Turkish bows were so strong that if a coin was placed under the bow-string at one end of the bow, as it was being strung, no one but a trained archer could bend the bow sufficiently to set free the coin so that it fell to the ground. [Illustration: FIG. 6.] Fig. 6 shows an Oriental reflex bow being gradually reversed preparatory to fitting on its bow-string. [Illustration: FIG. 7.] Fig. 7 shows a similar bow when reversed sufficiently to fit its bow-string. Though this illustration is from an ancient Greek vase, it will be noticed that in it the power of the leg and arm is applied in precisely the same way as in the more modern example given.