FOOTNOTES:
[308] Nād-i ʿAlī for the Arabic Nādi ʿAlīyan (“call on ʿAlī”), a prayer to ʿAlī much used by Shiahs: an amulet on which the following prayer is inscribed, is also so-called:—
“Cry aloud to ʿAlī the possessor of wonders!
From him thou wilt find help from trouble!
He quickly removes all grief and anxiety!
By the Mission of Muḥammad and his own sanctity!”
Colonel J. P. Hamilton, in his Reminiscences of an Old Sportsman, writes: “The following superstitious ceremonies are mentioned in a book on falconry, supposed to be in the time of Edward the Confessor:—After a hawk has been ill and is sufficiently recovered to pursue the game, the owner has this admonition given to him: On the morrow tyde when thou goest out hawking, say, ‘In the name of the Lord, the birds of heaven shall be beneath thy feet.’ Also if he be hurt by the heron, say, ‘The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered. Hallelujah.’ And if he be bitte of any man, say, ‘He that the wicked man doth bind, the Lord at his coming shall set free’.”
In the middle ages, at the festival of St. Hubert, “dogs and falcons were brought into the church to receive the priest’s benediction, to the sound of horn and trumpet:....”: vide Science and Literature in the Middle Ages, by Paul Lacroix.
[309] Chirāg͟h in m. c. is often incorrectly used in the sense of ‘light’ instead of ‘lamp.’
“A praty craft to take an hawke that is brokyn owt of mew.
and all maner of fowlys that syt in trees if a man wyll.
“Looke Where an hawke perchith for all nyght: in any maner place. and softe and layserly clymbe to her With a sconce or a lanterne that hath bot oon light. in yowre hande and let the light be towarde the hawke so that she se not yowr face and ye may take hir by the leggys or oder Wise as ye lyst. and in lyke Wise all other maner fowle.”—Boke of St. Albans.
[311] That is with thread dyed with indigo: indigo is good for wounds.
[312] Hawk-catchers are careless about the manner they “seel” a hawk’s eyes: they generally use a coarse, large, needle and not infrequently a thorn.
[313] Qapāncha kardan, “To mail” a hawk: vide page 59, note [247].
XIV
PERSIAN FALCONER WITH INTERMEWED GOSHAWK
(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY A PERSIAN)
CHAPTER XXIX
TRAINING THE T̤ARLĀN OR PASSAGE GOSHAWK
After treating the hawk as described at the end of the last chapter, keep her “mailed”[314] for an hour or two, and furnish her with jesses, leash, and halsband.[315] After two hours or so “un-mail” her, and carry her on the fist for about an hour, gently stroking her breast and wings the while. Then place her on her perch to rest.
Next morning at daybreak take her on the fist, and, as gently as possible stroking her breast and back,[316] carry her till four or five hours after sunrise. Use any device or trick you can to get her to feed; scratch her feet between the digits to induce her to eat. If she will eat, give her a small quantity of meat; but if she won’t, let her remain hungry till the afternoon[317] and then try again: if then she will eat, well and good; give her a full meal that she may remember it, and learn to look to you for food. If she won’t eat, on no account force meat down her throat, or this will become a habit with her. Again in the evening take her on the fist, her eyes being still seeled, and carry her for five or six hours,[318] stroking her and scratching her feet to induce her to eat. If still she won’t eat, it is of no consequence: set her down to rest for the night.
The next morning try her again in the same way: she will probably feed. However, some goshawks will sulk for three days, refusing all food. Don’t be alarmed if your hawk does so, for it is of no consequence;[319] she will eat on the fourth day.
XV
INTERMEWED GOSHAWK ON EASTERN PADDED PERCH (FROM A PERSIAN PAINTING)
A soon as she has learnt to eat freely with seeled eyes, whether on your fist or off it, slightly unseel them, i.e., loosen the seeling thread so that she may see a little out of the tops of her eyes,[320] and feed her well, so. The next evening open her eyes a little more. The third evening unseel her eyes completely, and sit near a lamp with your back to the wall that none may pass to and fro behind you. This evening she must be on your fist for four or five hours. After that, carry her into a dark spot and place her on her perch to rest.
Early next morning take her up, and sit, back to the wall, in some quiet spot, where people can be seen at a distance. Near noon, feed her up for the day, and then set her on a perch in a place where people cannot pass to and fro, except at a distance. Two or three hours before sunset, take her on the fist again and carry her till two hours after nightfall, i.e., much less than on the previous night.
In the morning take her up as before. To-day you must feed her twice, giving her less in the morning and more in the evening.
During these few days you must on no account give her feathers or casting, for she will, from fear, retain them in her stomach, and her temperament will be upset.
On the sixth night you must carry her till midnight, stroking her at frequent intervals. By this time she will have become perfectly quiet. Then carry her to her perch, and set her down to rest.
Early next morning take her on the fist, and carry her in a place where no one can pass behind you. Then take her to some quiet, private spot, and place a live chicken or pigeon in her feet, and get her to seize it. Then cut the chicken’s throat and give her a little to eat. Try and induce her to step on to your fist, either from the ground or from her perch.
During these few days that you are giving her live birds, feed her while close to a hound,[321] so that she may get accustomed to the presence of such dogs. Tie a long cord to the leash, and placing her on an assistant’s fist induce her to fly a few paces to your fist. Do not give her live pigeons and chickens every day or she will learn to come to your fist only for the “pelt,”[322] and that is an error. Call her rather to plain meat so that, should you in the field not happen to have a live bird about you, she will, the moment you raise your fist, come readily to a meat-lure. There is no harm if you kill in her feet a live bird, say every eight or ten days.
When she is thoroughly trained to the lure, i.e., when she will without a “creance”[323] come with eagerness to your fist, starting without hesitation from any spot where you may place her, cast her on the ground and play with her so as to teach her to run round and round you, so that when, in the field, she puts a quarry into a bush[324] she may run round the bush just as you have taught her to run round you, so that by this means the chukor she has “put in” may not trick her by making off from the far edge of the bush. The object of this instruction on the ground is to teach her to run round the bush and block the quarry after she has “put it in,” and then to rise and take up a commanding position on a tree[325] to watch the bush from thence, so that the partridge escape her not.
The more familiar you make your hawk, and the keener you make her on the lure,[326] the better. Now, if you have trained[327] your hawk in less than forty days, you have hurried her training, and “Hurry is of the Devil, but Deliberation is from God.”[328] Be not overhasty or you will spoil her. Such and such a falconer is sure to vaunt his skill, boasting that he has trained and flown his hawk in fifteen days. He has erred and blundered: he is not a lover of a hawk but a lover of the pot;[329] he is one who would not sacrifice one partridge for a hundred goshawks. As for you, your hawk must not be trained[330] in less than forty days.[331]
When your hawk is trained, that is when she is perfect at the lure and accustomed to hounds, horses, and mounted men, go, the day before you intend flying her at wild quarry, into the open country and lure her from a distance with a chicken two or three months old. As soon as she comes, let her take it, and feed her up on it for the day, giving her feathers and bones, that she may throw up her casting[332] early the following morning.
Although it is the custom of many Ostringers[333] to give to a goshawk, the day before she is to be flown, washed meat—that is meat cut small, cast into luke-warm water and given with a lot of water—still in my opinion the practice is wrong; for if a hawk be alternately given washed meat one day and flown the next, and habituated to this custom, the custom becomes second nature to her. Now suppose your friends and acquaintances, together with their falconers, some fifty persons in all, have settled to go for a ten days’ hawking trip to a certain spot where there is an abundance of chukor and other quarry, and have invited you to join them, you ought, during these short ten days, to hawk every day. However, your hawk will only give you five days’ sport, for you have habituated her to fly on alternate days, after she has been “set;”[334] she certainly will not now fly every day. Do not therefore teach her this custom. Give her the day before you go hawking, not washed meat but a chicken as I have said, for a chicken’s flesh has little nourishment and will “set” her as though she had been given washed meat. By giving her a chicken you will not accustom her to washed meat; and when on that ten days’ outing you will not have to stay at home and twiddle your thumbs.[335] Another objection to washed meat is that your hawk gradually loses condition.
To resume. After luring your hawk from a distance and killing the chicken under her and feeding her upon it, set her on the edge of some water: she will perhaps drink and bathe,[336] and oil,[336] and preen her feathers, and so be in fettle for to-morrow’s flight. One hour before sunset take her on the fist.
(My son, never, never, go up to a new hawk without meat in your hand.[337] Always approach a new, sitting hawk very, very slowly, and sit down to one side of her. Do not look at the hawk’s eyes, for a man’s eyes and face have a terrifying effect on hawks, especially when the gazer’s head is crowned with a Turcoman cap. Take meat in your hand and get her to jump from the perch to your fist, and let her eat one or two beakfuls: then carry her away. Falconer, listen: should you ever require to go to your hawk in the dark to take her on the fist, having no light with you, talk to yourself in a low tone the while; for she will recognize your voice and not be scared).
In short take her on your fist an hour before sunset, and carry her till an hour after dark. If you ride about with her on a quiet horse, so much the better. After that set her down to rest for the night.
(There should be a light in your hawk’s room all night that she may feel secure. It is a mistake to keep a goshawk in the dark, for goshawks are ever fearful.)
Very early next morning take up your own hawk, and be afield before the eagles have begun their daily questing.[338] You must not have with you more than one dog, well-mannered and well-trained. Let your hawk have a beakful or two[339] of meat to whet her appetite and make her keen. Now go into a good spot, mark down a chukor that will give a fairly easy flight,[340] and, saying “Oh God! my hope is in Thee,” cast off your hawk. My son, though falconers and sportsmen do not approve of this, yet I approve it: act as I instruct thee and thou wilt experience no ill.
Give ear to my teaching; my precepts obey:
In the training of hawks I have spent all my day.
A truly-trained bird can see from afar,
And choose for its quarry “Aquilla” the star.
If your hawk to fly rightly you wish and desire,
To God say a prayer, for He is thy Sire.
When the Portal of Hope is open to all[341]
Before God, on thy knees, with reverence fall.
Take care of thy bird, for God made it too,
The earth and the sea, the Heavens and you.
At any rate this hawk of yours has been perfected in every part of her training. Perhaps, too, she is fast. If, as she leaves your fist, she at once take the “chukor” in the air, on no account feed her up: give her only the brain. When by this act of hers you have discovered that she is fast, go and put up another “chukor.” If it rise close to you, let it get away a little distance before you cast off your hawk so that the partridge may not be taken, but be “put into” a bush. Now go with a very little meat in your hand, and dismount near the bush. Go very gently and take your hawk on your fist. Set on your dog[342] and make it put up the partridge out of the bush. As soon as the partridge rises, cast off your hawk. However she take it, whether at once in the air, or at a distance before it can “put in,” go slowly up to her and cut the “chukor’s” throat. If you want to fly your hawk again next day, give her one thigh, the heart, and the liver together with feathers as “casting.” If you don’t intend to fly her next day, give her in addition one side of the breast.[343] While feeding her, call the dog to your side that she may become accustomed to it.
If your hawk be a tiercel,[344] one thigh of the “chukor” with the head and neck and their bones will be a sufficient feed.
Now let us suppose that you are out with your friends on that ten days’ hawking expedition and that your hawk has daily killed five or six partridges without misbehaving herself, and that you have duly fed her up after the last flight, at the place she put in; do not suppose that now, after she is thoroughly entered to quarry,[345] you must necessarily during these ten days act so every day. Should you, for instance, now prefer to stay at home one day, lure her from a distance; but should you take the field, then at the last flight, when she has taken her partridge, give her the head and brain to eat. On the spot where she has killed or “put in,” place her on a stone and go yourself a long way off, and then lure her to you and feed her up. She has learnt how to kill partridges, and your present action is to prevent her forgetting the lure.
Let us suppose that the first day your new goshawk takes the partridge in the air you feed her up on it. Well, the next time you go out hawking, she will, on the partridge rising, try her best;[346] if she take it in the air, well and good, but if not, she will either return to you or give up; she will not continue to chase the partridge till she puts it in.[347] Many a good hawk have I seen spoilt like this through the gross ignorance of the falconer. A hawk cannot always take a partridge in the air: it should therefore learn to follow and “put in.”[347]
Though I have warned you once, I warn you again; do not go hawking chickens and house-pigeons,[348] for this is a mistake.
The goshawk falcon[349] is in every respect better than the tiercel. I have proved this by experience. Many falconers say that the tiercel is faster and more adroit, but these do not know that a hundred tiercels cannot do what one “falcon”[349] does. It appears to them that the tiercel is faster, because he is smaller and moves his wings with greater rapidity. But the falcon is larger and longer, and can, from the summits of high hills make a partridge “put in.” The tiercel cannot do this; it gives up half way. There is no question but that the falcon is a hundred degrees better than the tiercel,[350] either for quarry as small as the Quail, or for quarry as large as the Common Crane and the Great Bustard.[351]
My son, if you want to be counted by keepers of short-winged hawks a past master in the art, and to reap a full enjoyment from the sport, then train your goshawks,[352] sparrow-hawks, and shikras, etc., as I have described.
You should try to finish your day’s hawking before noon, so that you, your horse, your hawk, and your hound, may all rest till the next day. Hawking prolonged into the afternoon[353] is bad, because eagles and other birds of prey are then in search of their evening meal, and they will come down on you even from afar off. Should you lose your hawk in the afternoon, you have little time to search for her and also reach your house before nightfall. Should you not lose her, but manage to add a few more partridges to your bag, it is difficult to know the proper amount of food to give: the Winter nights are long and cold, and if you give her but a small feed she will lose condition;[354] if through fear of the cold you give a full feed, she, tired though she be, will not sleep; or if she sleep, she will not “put over”[355] nor digest[356] properly, and next day your friends will start off hawking before your hawk has cast[357] or got her appetite. These are the reasons I do not approve of hawking in the afternoon. If your friends force you to go out hawking with them in the afternoon, feed up your hawk after her first flight.
Do not overfly your hawk. She should fly no more than she can fly with delight to herself. Two or three flights are sufficient, and I consider it unlawful (ḥarām) to give her more than five flights.[358] If she be flown only two or three times, she will remain keen on her quarry.[359] This is the way to treat all goshawks and sparrow-hawks. Know that all these sporting-birds are naturally good, and the Wise God has created them all for the pleasure and delight of man; but it rests with the falconer to make or mar them. Except in two particulars, their good or bad points are the result of training. First, the falconer, however good, cannot make slow hawks fast, nor vice versâ. Second, he cannot increase the courage of his hawk. Now, although I have seen it stated in works on falconry[360] that to increase a hawk’s courage you should feed her for three days on pigeon’s flesh steeped in wine,[361] when if she have previously taken only partridges she will now take even cranes, yet this is not the case; the statement is falsehood, pure and unalloyed, for I have tested it: my hawk took no cranes—that was of minor importance—but what she did do was to fall sick. It is God, not the falconer, that bestows swiftness and courage. In these two matters the falconer is powerless.
God gave the hawk her courage and her speed,
Can’st thou thyself increase what He Himself decreed?
For instance, if ten horses be trained for a race,[362] one will win, and whenever you race them the same one will win—unless, of course, some accident happen, or the horse is out of sorts. So, too, with greyhounds and other animals. In short, courage and powers of flight have nothing whatever to do with the falconer: for these the Grace of God is necessary.
Now, first you must train your hawk to come eagerly to the fist from any spot where your voice reaches her. Further, you must not encourage her to become so bold and familiar with dogs that she lay hands on them;[363] for it may happen that one day when you have cast her at a partridge, a fox or a jackal crosses her path: if she has acquired a habit of binding to dogs she will fasten on to the fox or jackal, and so suffer instant destruction. Neither must you allow her to be too bold with small children, lest one day, while you are absent, your small boy come to her on her perch and she seize him, and none be there to hear his cries, and so he be blinded or killed. Both these accidents have happened frequently, i.e., a goshawk has killed a child, and a jackal a goshawk. This evil habit seldom exists in passage hawks,[364] qizil, or t̤arlān; it is generally the eyess qizil[365] that acts like this, and hence falconers are not very fond of the eyess.[365] In short, your hawk should stand somewhat in fear of all dogs except your own hound; it is better for her to remain in fear of strange hounds that might injure her, and of the dogs of the wandering tribes.[366]
Secondly, your hawk should make the partridge “put in” (or take it just as it is going to “put in”),[367] and then after circling round the covert two or three times take stand on the top of the covert till you arrive, when she should leave her perch and come to your fist. She should not fly off and leave the place where the partridge “put in,” else by the time you have followed her and recovered her, the partridge will have escaped.
Such is hawking with short-winged hawks in hilly country, that is, hawking “chukor” and “seesee”[368]. As for hawking in flat country, a goshawk will there take duck, geese, common cranes,[369] great bustards, ravens, hubara, stone-plovers,[370] saker falcons,[371] and even imperial sand-grouse,[372] quail, [373] pin-tailed sand-grouse,[372] and ruddy shieldrakes.[373] All this quarry—(pheasants[374] and black partridges[375] are excepted)—she can take at the first or second dash[376] only, otherwise she will fail in doing so.
If you come across any of this quarry in open country and desire to fly at it, then, if your hawk, by crouching and resting its breast on your hand and becoming rigid,[377] shows that she has a natural inclination for it,[378] be sure you take notice of the direction of the wind. With your hawk’s breast towards the wind,[379] gallop your horse towards the quarry. The horse must indeed move, but you must so hold and keep your fist that your hawk does not open her wings; for she must, while the quarry has still a foot on the ground, quit your fist like a bullet; she will then take the quarry in the air before it has got away ten yards. On no account cast your hawk off with her back to the wind, for this is dangerous. First, by casting her off back to the wind, her loins will be strained; and leaving your fist uncollectedly, she will fail to reach the quarry, and your falconer friends will jeer at you and at your action. Should you even manage to cast her off so close that it is as though you are giving the quarry into her hand, she and the quarry, when she “binds”[380] to it, will fall to the ground (i.e., if the wind be at all strong), and the quarry will, breaking away from her, not again be overtaken. Should your hawk even bind so firmly that, on falling, the quarry does not break away, still she will suffer for that folly, and will get injured or fall sick. It is the habit of all birds of prey, when within the distance of five or six spans of their quarry, to cease beating their wings, in order to get ready to seize it. Now if you cast off your hawk, breast to the wind, even though she cease to beat her wings for the last three or four feet of her flight, still by the help of the impetus gained by the cast, by your horse’s galloping, and by the beating of her own wings, she will reach and “bind” to the quarry and sportsmen will compliment you and commend your hawk. If, however, you cast her off up-wind of the quarry, the moment when, according to her nature, she ceases beating her wings on nearing the quarry, the wind will strike her loins and overturn her; and she will therefore fail to “bind.” Hence it is a law never to fly a hawk with her back to the wind: to do so is botchery. When, however, hawking partridges in the hills with a goshawk, or when hawking gazelles in the plains with a saker, the rule allows of exceptions. In the former case your hawk is cast off from a height, and with the aid of gravity[381] follows the partridge till it “puts in;” in the hills, too, the force of the wind is broken. In the latter case you have no choice but to fly your chark͟h or bālābān at gazelle from up-wind, for as soon as the falcon stoops and the greyhound arrives, the gazelle has no choice but to put its nose into the wind and to flee windwards.[382] If the wind is strong, the falcon, flying against the wind, will probably not overtake it; but if she does make sufficient headway to overtake it—which she may do with great difficulty—she will, while stooping and recovering and again rising high, lose ground and fall about a thousand paces behind. In the meantime the greyhounds are too blown[383] to seize the gazelle. For these reasons the gazelle must be flown at from up-wind;[384] this will also be explained later, in the chapter on the Chark͟h.
These observations do not apply to hawking chukor and seesee, for these “put in.” Still, it is better to fly at even these, from up-wind, whether in the hills or in the plains, for then the advantage is with the hawk.
When your hawk is thoroughly entered to chukor and seesee,[385] and never fails you, you should fly her in the plains at some of the quarry mentioned above; for flying a hawk in the plains, after she has been thoroughly entered to chukor and seesee, has several special advantages, though these are not commonly known to falconers. Many falconers fancy that if you fly your hawk at large quarry in the plains, thoroughly accustoming her to it, she will not thereafter take chukor and seesee. This is an error. Now a goshawk can only take duck and hubara and such-like quarry of the plains, at the first or second dash: if not taken at once such quarry will speedily outstrip the hawk. Therefore the hawk must, on level open ground, fly her fastest and strive her utmost at the beginning, and this habit soon becomes second nature. If a man wrestle with a famed wrestler, thereafter novices and ordinary people are to him as nothing.[386] So, too, it is with a hawk flown at large quarry. Even at the commencement, partridges are a mere nothing to her; but when, after acquiring the habit of swift flight by being flown in the plains, she is again flown in the hills with the additional advantage of gravity, her swiftness will astonish you; it will truly be something to see. You must, of course, not weary her by overflying, for by overflying you make her stale.[387] A second advantage derived from flying her in the plains, is that she necessarily sees a large number of buzzards, vultures, kites, eagles, and such-like birds, and so, becoming speedily familiarized to them, ceases to be in terror of them.
A third advantage is, that when she fails to take the quarry and “falls at marke,”[388] she will, on your riding up, readily rise and take stand on your fist, for goshawks have a natural dislike to resting on a flat surface; they love to perch on trees, hillocks, or rocks.
A fourth; your hawk learns to take every quarry at which she is flown: should you fail to find partridges you need not return with an empty bag, tired and cross; for you can fly her at hubara, ravens, stone-plovers, etc., instead.
My son, teach your hawk the habits that I have described. Also accustom her to drink freely;[389] accustom her after each meal to drink a beakful or two. Always, about two hours after dark, offer her water in a cup held close in front of her; try to induce her[390] to take a few beakfuls, as by so doing she will digest easily.[391] Accustom her to drinking at least two or three times a day, either from a cup or from a stream. If she drink only one beakful, it is an advantage, especially at night. Drinking keeps her in health.
Now my son, know that it is the pride and glory of a falconer to train long-winged, not short-winged hawks; for the natural quarry of the former is rats, black-breasted sand-grouse, pigeons, duck, and small birds; but when falcons fall into the hands of a competent falconer, they are required to take common cranes, geese, and gazelles. If the falconer be not skilled, how can such quarry be taken by the falcon? As for goshawks, their natural quarry in the hills is partridges and pigeons, and in the hands of the falconer they do no more than kill partridges: it is merely incumbent on the falconer to familiarize them with horses, dogs and men, so that after “putting in” they may take stand and not make off.
Now I, the slave of the Royal Court, was once in attendance on His Majesty (may our souls be his sacrifice) in the hills of (——?)[392] in Māzenderān. One day a flight of snow-cock[393] rose suddenly in front of the August Presence of the King of Kings. I had on my fist a female t̤arlān of two moults. The moment the covey, consisting of twenty or thirty birds,[394] rose, I cast off my hawk, and she promptly took one cock in the air.[395] I hastily dismounted and gave her the brain only; I did not feed her up. Meanwhile the “Qibla[396] of the Universe” dismounted and became busy with his breakfast. I took the snow-cock into the Presence: it was examined and I was complimented. I remounted and rode on a short distance, when three more snow-cock rose in front of me. I flew the same hawk and took one,[397] and the Shāh had not finished breakfast when I bore it into the Presence. He applauded me and bestowed on me a shawl, for it is most unusual for a goshawk to succeed in taking a snow-cock. A goshawk may indeed take one straight away, in the air, just as it has risen,[398] but she cannot make one “put in,” for a snow-cock will fly for miles.[399]