FOOTNOTES:
[771] This chapter has been somewhat abridged.
[772] Eastwick’s translation.
[773] In India it was lawful to trap a man’s pigeon but not to keep his lost hawk. In India if a hawk is caught the whole village knows it, and the news at once spreads for a radius of thirty miles. I once lost a hawk in Dera Ghazi Khan which was caught in Kapurthala, but the news of its capture soon reached me. Such instances are common.
[774] Qiṣāṣ, “exact retaliation”; an eye for an eye.
CHAPTER LXII
ACCIDENTAL IMMERSION DURING WINTER
If your hawk, in pursuit of a water-fowl, happen to fall into the water in the depth of Winter, she will, if you do not apply remedies, certainly perish.[775] Treatment: if the hawk has taken the quarry, give her its warm heart and liver. Then “mail” her, place her in the bosom of a falconer and send him home. He should carry the hawk into the bath[776] or into a warm room and there take her out of his bosom and “unmail” her; and if she have digested the heart and liver he gave her, he should give her a proper meal of warm chicken. Item: mail the hawk and light a fire. Place the hawk in your waist-shawl, or in the skirt of your cloak, or in a handkerchief, and hold her some distance from the fire so that she may be gradually warmed through: feed her as described above. Item: should you be in a spot where fuel is unobtainable, “mail” your hawk, place her in your horse’s nosebag and put the nosebag on the horse’s head. Then mount and ride hard for home. The horse’s breath will give life to your hawk: it will save her from death. Arrived home, feed her. Though by this expedient the hawk’s feathers will get ruffled and perhaps broken, still this is a lesser evil.