True Combat Value of Wootz

[Lee]

Originally Posted by S.Al-Anizi

Richard Burton, being an expert swordsman, seems to have noticed that none of the locals of Arabia he'd witnessed were good swordsman, rather using the sword as some kind of stick, and evading cuts rather than parrying them...

My own experience with the vast majority of Victorian-age literature on swords is that it does not stand up very well by today's standards, being pretty much anecdotal and very deeply colored by societal prejudices. Perhaps some of our martial artists will disagree (and they are likely to know much better than me), but I suspect Burton was judging based upon the perspective of European fencing standards; not an applicable yardstick.

[Tim Simmons]

I have to agree with Lee. Burton had his pet "Johnny foreigners" but unlike him an Englishman only next to god, they were never as good. His comments on Africans that latter were to charge machine guns with spears. Are as if they were a miserable sniveling shower of cowards. I suspect Burton suffered from hairy hands. It made you go blind in the 19th century. oops

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

I have to agree with Lee. Burton had his pet "Johnny foreigners" but unlike him an Englishman only next to god, they were never as good. His comments on Africans that latter were to charge machine guns with spears. Are as if they were a miserable sniveling shower of cowards. I suspect Burton suffered from hairy hands. It made you go blind in the 19th century. oops

Sir Richard was an extraordinary man, and few people ever experienced his range of adventures, interests, daring exploits and ... controversies.
Yes, he was almost a caricature of a Victorian Englishman, and his accounts of the "natives" were often unfair, subjective, biased and prejudicial. On the other hand, being a famous fencer, he was well qualified to express his opinion on swordwielding techniques of Africans and Arabian Beduins. I would not be surprised if he engaged in mock fencing bouts with them to test his theories of comparative value of European vs. "Oriental" fencing. After all, there were few of his pet theories he did not put to practical test.
Just name me another man who had traveled to so many forbidden places, translated so many forbidden books and had so many passionate adherents and enemies!