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The Crossbow
' There are some who are called " Foresters," who pursue larger game
and surround and kill it with the arquebus and with dogs.
' Only those sportsmen are called " Ballesteros " (Crossbowmen) who
hunt every kind of game. The Ballesteros hunt the stag and deer on horseback,
they know how to stalk and they know the tracks and habits of all wild
animals and where they may be killed. The Ballesteros make hunting parties
for every kind of animal and they know the haunts and habits of each one,
according to its nature, and everything that belongs to the craft of forestry
and hunting.'
Of the Crossbow as an Instrument of the Chase
' The crossbow is safer in its management for the life of man than the
arquebus, for a fatal accident has never happened through the breaking
of the bow or of the cord of the crossbow, which are the two possible dangers
and which fail sometimes, when they may inflict injury but nothing serious.
' The crossbow is in many ways superior to the arquebus. It is more
silent, and in a herd it kills but does not alarm. It gives a dumb blow
if he who uses it is dexterous. It is not so with the arquebus, which by
its report alarms and scatters the herd. The crossbow is cleaner and less
costly in its use. It is more effective than the arquebus and when once
prepared for discharge never fails. Failure, on the contrary, too often
happens with the arquebus. The crossbow also kills the greater as well
as the lesser game. Anciently this instrument was more used in Spain than
in all the rest of the world, therefore the best master-makers of crossbows
were found in Spain rather than in other kingdoms.
' We will now give the names of the appendages or ornaments of the crossbow,
and of the iron and horn parts of which it is composed.
' In order that the connoisseur may know for the future the marks of
the best makers, those crossbows which are the best and most ancient are
marked with a cross.
' The elder Azcoitia made the "tablero" or wooden stock and also the
"gaf " used for bending the bow,1 and he put his name on the
trigger of the stock and on the "gafa."
' Pedro de la Fuente made both stock and " gafa " and put his name where
Azcoitia put his.
1 This was the ' cranequin' or ratchet winder,
Chapter XXXI., which in the Spanish crossbow was sometimes permanently
fixed to the stock. |
