There is more variety in the extremities of cutting-blades. The falchion of Ashanti, Dahome, and Benin, the murderous despotisms of western intertropical Africa, terminates in a whorl. This is also the shape of the Chinese sabre-knife, with which criminals were despatched. The old Persian Sword, often called by mistake the Turkish Sword, ends in a point beyond a broadening of the blade. The effect is to add force to the cut; the weapon becomes top-heavy, but that is of little consequence when only a single slash, and no guarding, is required of it. This peculiarity was curiously developed in the true Turkish scymitar, which we see in every picture of the sixteenth century, and which has now become so rare in our museums. The end gradually developed to a monstrous size; the length was cut down for the sake of handiness and the guard was almost abolished, because parrying was the work of the shield. This exceptional form extended far eastwards and westwards. Some of the Nepaul Swords have a double wave at the end. It was adopted by the Chinese, who, as usual in their arms, reduced it to its simplest expression: the pommel is cap-shaped, the handle corded, and the guard a small oval of metal insufficient to protect the hand (fig. 145). Another good specimen of the ‘Turanian blade’ is the formidable Dáo[443] of the Nágá tribe, south-east of Assam. It is a thick, heavy backsword, eighteen inches long, with a bevel where the point should be, worn at the waist in a half-scabbard of wood, and used for digging as well as killing. The Turkish form also extended to Europe and America, where it became one of the multitudinous varieties of the ‘mariner’s cutlass,’ from ‘curtle-axe’—_curtus_ and axe. The ‘Turanian blade’ is well shown in Eastern scutcheons.[444] Its shape resembles that of a hunter’s horn with a Sword-knot hanging in two ribbons, a survival from remote antiquity. The tincts are purpure, gules and sable, upon a fasce tenné (‘on a fess’ or bar) or, vert and argent. The descriptions are very precise and technical; for instance, Abu el-Mahásin thus notices the Rank (armorial badges) of Anuk, son of Abdullah el-Ashraty: ‘The coat was composed of a circle argent cut by a bar vert, upon which was charged a Sword gules.... This Rank was very pleasing, and the women of the town had it tattooed upon their wrists.’ The Rank was given when a subject was raised to the dignity of Amir. [Illustration: FIG. 144.—OLD TURKISH.] [Illustration: FIG. 145.—CHINESE.] [Illustration: FIG. 146.—OLD TURKISH SCYMITAR.] [Illustration: FIG. 147.—THE DÁO.] [Illustration: FIG. 148.—SAILOR’S CUTLASS.] [Illustration: FIG. 149.—HINDU KITÁR.] [Heading: _CHELIDONIAN BLADES._]