[Illustration: FIG. 175.—SWORD-DAGGERS.] Meyrick,[512] in his general introduction to the weapons of all nations (vol. i. Pl. 1), gives two forms of Egyptian blades, or rather choppers. One (_a_, fig. 174) is a straight bill-shaped cutting-blade with the tip upturned, and the handle is provided with cords and tassels. This is in fact the old Turkish Scymitar and its offshoots, of which I have already spoken; and thus Egypt led to the chopper-types, which will presently be noticed. The other (_b_) is a curved Scymitar, with a bevelled end and a double cord at the hilt.[513] The former seems to be an imitation of the obsidian flake: the latter is a development of the Khopsh or sickle-Sword. [Heading: THE SWORD IN AFRICA.] And here I must temporarily abandon the chronological for the geographical order, and briefly treat of the Sword in modern Africa. In the Dark Continent, as in the New World, the weapon has scant importance. Reviewing the arms of the former ‘Quarter,’ we must conclude that its favourites are the war-axe (employed in rough work), and the spear[514] (used in fine work); while the Sword proper is confined, as a rule, to Moslem Africa. We have seen that in olden time the Mashaua (Maxyes) of Libya, bordering upon Egypt, used large Swords. The Adyrmachidæ, or ‘first Libyans’ of Herodotus (iv. 168), called by Silius Italicus (iii. 219) ‘gens accola Nili,’ were also armed with curved blades. Denham and Clapperton inform us that the Knights of Malta exported great numbers of the straight double-edged blades which they affected, to Benghazi, in North Africa, where they were exchanged for bullocks. From the Tripolitan they were borne across the Sahará to Bornu, to Hausaland, and to Kano, where they were remounted for the use of the negroid Moslem population. Modern travellers note that the trade still continues at Kano, where some fifty thousand blades were annually imported across the Mediterranean—the reason is that these negroids cannot make their own. Hence they are passed on to the Pule (Fulah) and Fulbe tribes, the Hausas, the Bornuese, and others dwelling in the north-western interior. The great Mandenga family, miscalled Mandingos, are also purchasers of European blades, which they mount and sheathe for themselves. Far to the south-east Mr. Henry M. Stanley (_loc. cit._ i. 454) notes that the ‘King of Kishakka possesses an Arab scimitar, which is a venerated heirloom of the royal family, and the sword of the founder of that kingdom’ (?).