JAPANESE SWORDSMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 43, 24 October 1891, Page 508

JAPANESE SWORDSMEN.

The pictures and carvings of Japan, as a rule, present their warriors armed with two swords, one on each side. This two-sword matter is more a part of ceremony and state than anything else. When a Japanese means business he needs only one sword. They are not so skilful of fence as the Europeans, but nevertheless have a number of cuts and slashes which, being in their nature so many surprises, would give a swordsman unused to their methods some little trouble.

The first move a Jap makes in a sword fight is fraught with danger to his opponent. There are no preliminaries with a Jap. The fight begins with him while his blade is yet in his scabbard, and as he draws his weapon wisdom will give him about forty feet of room. Grasping the scabbard near the centre he slightly tilts it so that the point of the sword as it hangs by his side is, if anything, a little higher than the hilt. The sword itself is curved, very heavy, and with its single edge is keen as twenty razors. When he draws it streams from the scabbard like a beam of light, and as it comes he makes a prodigious step forward with his right foot, accompanying the whole with a rapid circular slash upward of the back-handed sort. The whole performance is one motion, and rapid in its execution as thought. Your Jap will reach a man a dozen feet away, and the keen blade starting its work low will split an opponent like a mackerel. A Japanese swordsman always make this upward sweep on drawing his weapon, whether an enemy is in sight or not.