Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1885 — A Scrap of Tartar History. [ARTICLE]

A Scrap of Tartar History.

The remarkable sword manship of the Tartars is pi verbial. Their favorite weapon is a long curved cimetar, quite different faom that cf the Turks. It is made of the finest steel, richly alloyed with silver, and a sward becomes an heirloom In a family and descends to the first born so long as the family exists. When the last representative of a race dies, his sword, which may have come down to him from a hundred generations, is broken and bnried with himThe blades of tbe weapon, which beaten out on an onvx stone anvil in the ancient mogul city of Taztchintczy (the holy place), are very thin, and the wonderful feats performed with them are astonishing. Once when Robo, the cousin of the great mogul, was caupht in a rebellion, his execution was ordered. The most skillful swordman of the empire was provided for the beheading, and the great mogul and his court assembled to see it. For a second the keen Tartar blade flash*, ed in the sunhhgt' and then descened upon the bare neck of Robo, who stood uprignt to receive tho stroke- The shary steel passed through tbe vertebra, muscles, and orgrns of the neck, but so swift was the blow and so keen the blade that the head did not fall, but kept its exact position and not a vital organ was disturbed. In suprise ihe great mogul exclaimed l ‘What Robo art thou not beheaded ?» 'My Lord I am,’ replied Robo, ‘But so long as I keep my balance right my head will not fall off.’ The gnat mogul wa- so well pleased with iha defitness of the executioner that he ordered a bandage to be tied on and Robo speed ly recovered. He afterward became a ioval subject, nnd was made cashier of the empire be cause, as the great mogul remarked: ‘He knows that if he keeps his balances rl£ht his head will not come off.’ It is ne those curiou3 scraps of history that an often overs looked.—[Pittsburgh Chronicle.