Able Swordsmen

Elephants are completely disabled by one blow from the Arab's two handed sword, which almost severs the hind leg, biting deep into the bone. This feat is varied by slashing off the trunk, leaving it dangiing only by a piece of skin. A Ghoorka was seen by the late Laurence Oliphant to behead a buffalo with a single blow of his kookerle. And Sir Samuel Baker, a man powerful enough to wield during his African exploration the "Baby," an elephant rifle weighing twenty-two pounds, once clove a wild boar with his hunting knife almost in halves as it was making a final rush, catching it just behind the shoulder, where the hide and bristles are at least a span thiek. Sir Walter Scott relates how the Earl ofAngus.with his hugesweeping brand, challenged an opponent to fight, and at a blow chopped asunder his thigh bone, killing him on the spot. There is a story current in Australia that Lieutenant Anderson, in 1852, during an encounter with bushrangers, cut clean the gun barrel of his adversary with (lis sword. And at Kassassin it is related that one of Arabi Pasha's soldiers was severed in two during the midnight charge. But, in the opinión of experts, this is very improbable, even had the new regulation sabre then been In use.-