scabbards again are a mistake for carrying sharp blades; and, in
addition to this, I don't think our mounted branches who are armed with
swords have proper appliances given to them for sharpening their edges.
Even in time of peace, but especially in time of war, more attention
ought to be given to this point, and every soldier armed with a sword
ought to be supplied with the means of sharpening it, and made to keep
it with an edge like a razor. I may mention that this fact was noticed
in the wars of the Punjab, notably at Ramnugger, where our English
cavalry with their blunt swords were most unequally matched against the
Sikhs with _tulwars_ so keen of edge that they would split a hair.

I remember reading of a regiment of British cavalry charging a regiment
of Sikh cavalry. The latter wore voluminous thick _puggries_ round their
heads, which our blunt swords were powerless to cut through, and each
horseman had also a buffalo-hide shield slung on his back. They
evidently knew that the British swords were blunt and useless, so they
kept their horses still and met the British charge by lying flat on
their horses' necks,[62] with their heads protected by the thick turban
and their backs by the shields; and immediately the British soldiers
passed through their ranks the Sikhs swooped round on them and struck
them back-handed with their sharp, curved swords, in several instances
cutting our cavalry men in two. In one case a British officer, who was
killed in the charge I describe, was hewn in two by a back-handed stroke
which cut right through an ammunition-pouch, cleaving the pistol-bullets
right through the pouch and belt, severing the officer's backbone and
cutting his heart in two from behind. It was the same in the Balaclava
charge, both with the Heavy and the Light Brigade. Their swords were too
straight, and so blunt that they would not cut through the thick coats
and sheep-skin caps of the Russians; so that many of our men struck with
the hilts at the faces of the enemy, as more effective than attempting
to cut with their blunt blades.

In the article on English sword-blades to which I have referred, stress
is laid on the superiority of blades of spring steel, tempered so that
the tip can be bent round to the hilt without breaking or preventing the
blade assuming the straight immediately it is released. Now my
observations lead me to consider spring steel to be totally unfitted for
a sword-blade. The real Damascus b