I'm currently reading "The Adventurous Bowmen: Field Notes on African Archery" by Saxton Pope and here is what he says of the arrows they took to Africa. He comments on them several times in the chapter "A Prologue In Mombasa".
- "We make our shafts, feather them and head them ourselves."
- "...and an arrow box of similar tough material, in which each archer carries a hundred or more arrows, lying on little racks, to hold them apart."
- "Besides this outfit we have in our baggage, arrow shafts, feathers and steel arrowheads sufficient for two thousand more arrows, with all the glue and silk ribbon, paint and other requisites for the manufacture of these missiles."
As for the arrows Pope discloses that they "are made of birch, three-eighths of an inch in diameter and twenty-eight inches in length."