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The Turks, according to some historians, used a bow about 6 feet long as well as the short "C" bow. African bows of the dim years were straight and about 5 feet tall. The Pygmies called on a 3-foot bow. The South American bow was between 6 and 7 feet high, while that of the North American Indian was rather short and generally made of hickory.

Just which European country was first to adopt archery is still a matter in dispute. The Genoese are known to have been experts with the bow since shortly after the dawn of the Christian Era. Drawings uncovered a few years ago in caverns in Southwestern France and Spain, which are regarded as at least 2,000 years old, show archers with bows in their hands and stricken animals with arrows in their bodies. Archery equipment, with age estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000 years, has been uncovered in Northern Europe.

So far as can be established, the English, up to about 1,200 years ago, used a bow of from 41/2 to 5 feet. Soon afterward, that nation, destined to become the most expert and successful in all Europe in the use of the bow, was using one about 6 feet tall. The change is said to have been influenced by the successes of the Norsemen, who invaded England, won many victories and, from 850 A.D. until almost 1050 A.D. controlled more of England than did the English.

Early in the 14th Century, the English Army, which had used the bow only in limited fashion up to that time, having depended mainly on mounted lancers, decided that archery was something really worth while in warfare, and thereafter its kings made practice at archery compulsory. As a consequence, England developed the best bowmen in Europe. The entire history of Europe might have been radically different if England had not gone in for expertness at archery exactly when she did. Otherwise she might have been conquered-and perhaps absorbed-by France during the war that started in 1340 and lasted for 100 years.

France had its crack archers massed for attack on English troops, Its warriors outnumbered those of England. But the English had been drilled in marksmanship, and it was because of this that they won important victories at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt.
In 1360, the English leaders, who previously had kept the bowmen on the ground, mounted a few as a test, and the result was an increase in shooting range from a maximum of 400 feet up to 650 and 700 feet. In the next battle, England flung its mounted bowmen against the French and the result was a catastrophe for France, which lost 11 princes, 1,200 knights and about 15,000 soldiers, whereas the English loss was fewer than 50.

England, however, was not the first to mount its archers. Genghis Khan, the mighty Mongol, used mounted troops in his battles that started about 1200 A.D. He allotted his cavalrymen two and sometimes three horses, and history records that almost all of his soldiers were mounted. The Khan's mounted archers could outrange the foot enemy, and, because this was so, his warriors could-and did-keep out of danger, while his cavalry bowmen dealt out death and devastation to all enemies.

The invasion by the Spanish Armada, in 1588, marked the end of the bow as a weapon of first importance. The Spanish, as usual, called on the bow and arrow. The English equipped 10,000 of their troops with firearms, as an experiment, and their success against the Spaniards relegated archery into a secondary position as a factor in warfare.

In 1644 the Royalists used the bow in Scotland against the Covenanters, and the final appearance of the bow for warfare in the British Isles was in 1888, during the brief clash between the clans of MacDonald and MacIntosh. France discarded the bow after some internal conflicts in 1630. The last time the bow was used in a major battle was by the Chinese in 1860 at Taku, although, of course, American Indians used them for many years later, and savage tribes in Africa and elsewhere still fight with bow and poisontipped arrow.
Japan, during the 16th and 17th Centuries, used the biggest bows known to history. They were from 7 feet 6 inches to beyond 8 feet in height. Occasional tournaments were staged in the royal halls of Kioto and Tokyo, where the marked-off shooting range was 384 feet. It is recorded that Wada Daihachi, in the 17th Century, shot 8,133 arrows down the hall in a 24-hour endurance contest-a rate of 5 shots per minute.