ome dropped their long staves after a disabling
blow on the arm.

"It is marvelous that they do not all kill each other," Jethro said.
"Surely this shaving of the head, Amuba, which has always struck us as
being very peculiar, has its uses, for it must tend to thicken the
skull, for surely the heads of no other men could have borne such
blows without being crushed like water-jars."

That there was certainly some ground for Jethro's supposition is
proved by the fact that Herodotus, long afterward writing of the
desperate conflicts between the villagers of Egypt, asserted that
their skulls were thicker than those of any other people.

Most of the men who fell into the water scrambled back into the boats
and renewed the fight, but some sank immediately and were seen no
more. At last, when fully half the men on each side had been put _hors
de combat_, four or five having been killed or drowned, the boats
separated, no advantage resting with either party; and still shouting
defiance and jeers at each other, the men poled in the direction of
their respective villages.

"Are such desperate fights as these common?" Chebron asked the
fishermen.

"Yes; there are often quarrels," one of them replied, quietly resuming
his fishing as if nothing out of the ordinary way had taken place. "If
they are water-side villages their champions fight in boats, as you
have seen; if not, equal parties meet at a spot halfway between the
villages and decide it on foot. Sometimes they fight with short
sticks, the hand being protected by a basket hilt, while on the left
arm a piece of wood, extending from the elbow to the tips of the
fingers, is fastened on by straps serving as a shield; but more
usually they fight with the long pole, which we call the neboot."

"It is a fine weapon," Jethro said, "and they guard their heads with
it admirably, sliding their hands far apart. If I were back again,
Amuba, I should like to organize a regiment of men armed with those
weapons. It would need that the part used as a guard should be covered
with light iron to prevent a sword or ax from cutting through it; but
with that addition they would make splendid weapons, and footmen armed
with sword and shield would find it hard indeed to repel an assault by
them."

"The drawback would be," Amuba observed, "that each man would require
so much room to wield his weapon that they must stand far apart, and
each would be opposed to three or four swordsmen in the en