FOOTNOTES:
[725] “Gorge,” the crop and also the contents of the crop.
[726] Gūsht-i du-si-rūza-mānda, “meat two or three days old.” Tainted meat kills all trained hawks, even lagaṛs and sakers.
[727] Ṣarf kardan.
[728] Such spices do indeed whet a hawk’s appetite, but their continued use is very injurious.
[729] Rūg͟han-i karchak, lit. “oil of cotton seed,” so-called from an idea that castor-oil was obtained from this seed.
[730] A formula repeated by Muslims in times of distress, especially at death.
CHAPTER LVI
DISEASES OF THE FEET[731]
THE “PINNE”[732] IN THE FEET
Know that this disease is of two kinds, and that gazelle-hawks are peculiarly subject to it; for a keen bālābān will stoop with force at the hard head of the gazelle, thereby injuring her feet;[733] from the blow a small vein in the sole of the foot gets torn or bruised, and the blood under and on the surface becomes corrupt, and soon black spots appear in the sole: one day the foot is well and one day bad, till the beginning of Spring, when the trees put out new leaves; then the “pinne” too breaks bounds and soon cripples the hawk completely.
The second kind also arises from a bruise: the spot swells, but there is no discolouration, nor any sign of black spots. This kind is called by the Arabs ḥafā,[734] and the cure of ḥafā is easy. Treatment of the first form, i.e., “mīk͟hak”: the sole is sure to be hot, so make a dough of ispaghul seed and put it on a piece of blue[735] cloth, and at nightfall bind it on your hawk’s feet. Watch her for half an hour lest she tear it off before the ispaghul has dried and adhered to the foot. In the morning rip up the cloth, and let your hawk rest, having previously, by spreading cotton-wool seed, prepared a place of rest for her. If she lie down, so much the better. In two or three nights’ time the swelling will disappear, but the discolouration will still remain. Continue the treatment nightly till the ispaghul poultice comes away with that blackness adhering to it. Item: thread a needle with ten or twelve horse-hairs, and pass it in from the outside[736] of the foot and bring it out at the “blackness” in the foot. Knot the horse-hairs in such a way that you can pull them upwards and downwards. Two or three times daily, pull the hairs to induce a flow of the foul matter. Do this for forty days, or for two months, till the black core moves with the hairs. By the time the upper knot will pass through the foot and come out at the under side of it, she will be cured. Item: pierce the discolouration in the sole with a needle, forcing in the needle for the distance of two or three barley-corn lengths. Then stick to the eye of the needle a bit of touch-wood,[737] the size of a filbert; set a light to it and let it burn till it is consumed to ashes; then withdraw the needle and anoint the place with oil of walnuts. In two or three days’ time the blackness, together with the core which is the real corn, will come away. Do nothing to the hole that will be left, except anoint it. Item: if both feet are affected remove the jess from the worse of the two, and break the tarsus bone.[738] Keep the hawk in a dark room on a bed of cotton-seed, in depth about four fingers’ breadth. The room must be so dark that the hawk cannot distinguish night from day. Once a day anoint her leg with clarified wax and mummy-oil.[739] It is not necessary to set or bind the leg. If your hawk is young, say of one or two moults, her leg will set in twenty days. If old, say of ten or fifteen moults, it will take forty days. The younger the hawk the sooner will the leg set. In this respect a hawk resembles man; for the broken bone of a five-year-old child will join in five days, of a ten-year-old child in ten days, of a fifty-year-old man in fifty days, and of a ninety-year-old in ninety days. However, a man of ninety years will, during these ninety days that he is laid up, contract so many other ailments that he will die.
Should an old man break a limb,
Leave him, take no care of him,
Since before his bones can mend
Further ills procure his end.
The same rule applies to hawks, too. Now, as soon as you see that when you throw the meat to your hawk she grasps it with her broken leg, change the jess from the sound to the unsound leg, and then break the former as you did the latter. Item: (and the best remedy of all) take a broken piece of a mercury-backed mirror, grind it very fine, and sift it through taffeta, so that it is as fine as collyrium of antimony. Then mix with it the gall of a black goat, and make it into the consistency of an ointment. Bind this ointment on to the feet of your hawk in the morning, removing it in the evening. After removing it, let her rest for half an hour. Again bind on this poultice, removing it in the morning. Again, after half an hour, bind on a fresh one and leave it on till sunset. That blackness will by this time have been drawn out and will protrude somewhat. Take hold of the blackness with tweezers and gently pull it. By the dispensation of the Creator the corn will come out by the root.[740] Fill the cavity left, with powdered antimony, and see that the feet are kept quite dry. This cure was invented by the writer and has been proved by experiment. Item: take fresh hot cow-dung and add to it double the quantity of salt.[741] Apply the mixture thickly to the perch, and renew twice a day, morning and evening, for a month or forty days. She will be entirely cured. Doubtless you will say that to keep a hooded falcon on such a perch may be easy; but what about an unhooded yellow-eyed hawk? This is my answer: take your hawk, t̤arlān, qizil, or sparrow-hawk—or whatever she may be—into a dark room and drive into the wall, as a perch, a wooden peg of proper thickness,[742] but not so round that the cow-dung will not stand on it: the perch should be broad. The hawk should be so tied to this perch that when she bates she will remain hanging. For the first day or two she must be watched by your man, for the heat of the cow-dung and salt will certainly make her “bate.” When she “bates,” go not near her; let her “bate” till she is exhausted: then, when she is quite still, and has ceased beating her wings, raise her and replace her on the perch. Every time she “bates” act in this manner. After a little, she will put up with the burning in her feet, finding it a lesser evil than hanging head downwards. In two or three days her feet will become numbed and she will no longer feel pain in them, and will therefore cease to “bate.” You must put on such a quantity of cow-dung that the hawk’s feet are buried in it. The fresher and warmer the cow-dung, the more efficacious the effect and the speedier the cure.[743] You should, in fact, tether a cow near the “mew” so as to have a fresh supply of dung ever at hand.
Now as regards the second form of this disease, called ḥafā, the symptoms are the same as in mīk͟hak, except that in ḥafā the blackness is absent from the sole of the feet. Treatment: bind on her feet, a few nights, powdered ispaghul seed as previously described, and she shall be cured. Item: pound up a little of the skin or rind of sweet pomegranate,[744] and add thereto a little salt. Apply this a few times to the perch, in the manner described, and the disease will disappear. Item: take acorns and gall-apples and pound them together, add camel’s urine to make a dough, and bind on to the feet a few times, and she will be cured. Item: take camel’s urine and green ispaghul,[745] and pound together; boil slightly; remove and place on the ground to cool. When luke-warm, immerse the hawk’s feet for half an hour, and the ill will be removed. Item: take her on the fist and carry her every day, and lure her. The glove and “carriage”[746] will cure her better than anything else.
If she’s ill, let the falconer carry the hawk;
Both man and bird will get good from the walk.
Item: keep her on a rough stone or rock, instead of on a perch.[747]
I have myself tested these remedies for mīk͟hak and ḥafā, and I have certainly found them beneficial.