Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1889 — WASHINGTON NOTES. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON NOTES.

Through the bureau of international exchanges at the Smithsonian Institution, Tuesday morning, Dr. St. Clair, chief of the consular division, State Department, received from Lieut. Taunt, United States commercial agent in the Congo country, the war outfit of a Byanzi warrior sent from a point nine hundred miles from the coast. It consists of a bamboo shield six feet long and one foot wide, a spear four feet long, a knife shaped someting like an exaggerated pruning knife and sharp on both edges, a bow with bamboo string and two iron-tipped arrows and three coils of small brass wire. The weapons of offense are murderous looking implements; but the shield seems woefully deficient in size and texture to protect the wearer. Before handling the weapons Dr. St. Clair will wash their points and edges in carbolic acid to remove the poison with which Con go warriors of ante-civilization days at least, were wont to tip them in order to add to their effectiveness.