FOOTNOTES:
[397] Yak dāna.
[398] Agar bi-dast raw qūsh girift fa-bi-hā.
[399] A farsak͟h or farsang; “a parasang,” about 3¾ English miles. The author uses the word merely to signify a long distance.
[400] “Reclaim,” to make a hawk tame, etc.
[401] Chashm-dūk͟hta, “with seeled eyes”: vide page 14, note [70].
[402] Ẓarg͟hām is one of the many Arabic words for a “lion”: Shabīb, “of brilliant youth”: Ḥabīb and Maḥbūb, “loved” and “beloved”: Shahāb, “meteor”: Badrān, an old Persian word, seems to mean “wicked.” All these names, however, are masculine.
[403] Bad-kulāh, “hood-shy.”
[404] The time limit for the evening prayer expires half an hour after sunset.
[405] The author is probably writing of October in the vicinity of either Bushire or Baghdad.
[406] Presumably as in India, water would be blown in a spray out of the mouth and with force, the falconer’s hand being raised and lowered to make the falcon expand her wings and expose the soft feathers underneath. The outer feathers are so arranged as to be a protection against rain, and it is not easy to soak them.
[407] The perch would probably be of the Arab pattern and consist of a pad on an iron spike; vide page 95.
[408] Hawks, even those that have never yet been unhooded since they were caught, know their own perches and have preferences.
[409] “To rouse”; said of a hawk when she makes her feathers stand on end and then shakes herself violently.
[410] Rūg͟han-kashī or rūg͟han-gīrī kardan, “to oil the feathers.” Par-k͟hūn or par-kashī kardan, “to preen and straighten the feathers.”
[411] Mudhun, “oil-bottle,” called in the Boke of St. Albans the “note” (nut?).
[412] “To man” a hawk is to make it tame and accustomed to the presence of human beings.
[413] K͟hadang kardan, lit. “to make straight like an arrow.” According to the Boke of St. Albans a hawk “reformith” her feathers when she straightens them without oiling them.
[414] In the Kapurthala State, sakers that were to be entered to kite were trained in this manner. The hawk, excited by being fed, was hooded and placed on the ground. Then, the lure being banged on the ground, it was taught to snatch at it (in the dark), and rewarded when it “bound” to the lure. The first live kite given as a “train” was presented to it in this manner, i.e., the hooded hawk was induced to “bind” to it as to the lure and was duly rewarded. The hood was then removed and perhaps a little more meat presented through the kite’s feathers. The kite was then forcibly removed and thrown to the distance of one or two feet, and as soon as the hawk bound to it, it was fed up on a fresh warm bird. The eyes of the kite were seeled, its claws tied up, and a string was of course fastened to its leg.
[415] A tame hawk’s nostrils get choked up with blood and dust. Eastern falconers are generally particular about keeping the nostrils clean. One of the advantages of “tiring” is that it induces a flow of water that keeps the nostrils clean. “‘Tiring,’ s., any tough piece (as the leg of a fowl with little on it) given to a hawk when in training to pull at, in order to prolong the meal and exercise the muscles of the back and neck.”—Harting.
[416] The mid-day sun would be too powerful at that time of the year.
CHAPTER XXXI
ANECDOTES OF A BAGHDAD FALCONER
Anecdotes of a Baghdad Falconer.—There is a well-known story of a famous falconer of Baghdad, named Sayyid Adham. For a long time he was blessed with no offspring, but at length the Lord of the World bestowed on him one son. At the time of our story, the boy had arrived at the age of two years, and had conceived a great affection and fascination for a certain bālābān, the property of his father.
A hawk-catcher[417] had captured a fine bālābān-i aḥmar-i shāmī, a young passage falcon, and had carried it as a “present”[418] to Dā,ūd, the Pasha of Baghdad.
Sayyid Adham, the Grand Falconer,[419] was summoned and the hawk made over to him with directions to train it to gazelle. He took it to his home, named it “Meteor,” and unseeled its eyes on the third day.
In the morning, he was seated at the edge of the sunshine,[420] his new hawk preening her feathers, etc., in the manner I have just described. He was, of course, watchful that his unmanned hawk should not be suddenly scared; for you must know that, should a new hawk be suddenly scared, it is difficult to efface from her memory[421] the remembrance of the fright, and she is perhaps spoilt for ever after. While the hawk was engaged in her preening, Sayyid Adham was suddenly horrified to see his small two-year-old son toddling towards him. Quietly intervening himself between the boy and the hawk he beckoned to the former to come to him. As soon as the child came up to him, he deftly took his head under his arm and kept it there till the hawk, having finished her toilet, was fed and rehooded. He released his son and found that the poor child had been suffocated:—
To save his hawk from starting in alarm
He seized the child and thrust him ’neath his arm,
And pressing tight and tighter in his dread,
He killed the boy by crushing up his head.
Though I myself never saw the Sayyid,[422] I was well acquainted with his immediate descendants. In training bālābān to gazelle they had no equal, and were justly proud of their skill. They used to pride themselves on the incident narrated above as being a proof of their father’s devotion to sport.
Bet with the Pasha.—It is also well known that Sayyid Adham once laid a wager with the Pasha of Baghdad that he would, within twelve days, fly at gazelle, with success, a certain newly caught bālābān. He did so; on the twelfth day, in the presence of the Pasha, the bālābān took its first gazelle in noble style, and the Sayyid his wager. Only a falconer knows the difficulty of taking a wild gazelle with a passage falcon within twelve days of its capture.[423]
Concerning these two matters God is the Knower[424]—but all the old men[425] of Baghdad bore constant testimony to their truth.