[143] My readers will recollect the Lenora. The unwilling resemblance has been forced upon me by the subject. I could not turn aside from the road because Burger had travelled it before. The “Old Woman of Berkely” has been foolishly called an imitation of that inimitable Ballad: the likeness is of the same kind as between Macedon and Monmouth. Both are Ballads, and there is a Horse in both.
[144] How came Mohareb to be Sultan of this Island? Every one who has read Don Quixote knows that there are always Islands to be had by Adventurers. He killed the former Sultan and reigned in his stead. What could not a Domdanielite perform? The narration would have interrupted the flow of the main story.
[145] In this valley, we found plenty of provender for our cattle: rosemary bushes, and other shrubs of uncommon fragance, which, being natives of the desert, are still perhaps without a name. Though these scented plants are the usual food of the camel, it is remarkable that his breath is insufferably nauseous. But when he is pushed by hunger, he devours thistles and prickles indiscriminately, without the least damage to his mouth, which seems proof to the sharpest thorns.
Eyles Irwin.
[146] The hawk is used at Aleppo in taking the hare. “As soon as the hare is put up, one, or a brace of the nearest greyhounds are slipped, and the Falconer galloping after them, throws off his hawk. The hare cannot run long where the hawk behaves properly, but sometimes getting the start of the dogs, she gains the next hill and escapes. It now and then happens when the hawk is fierce and voracious in an unusual degree, that the hare is struck dead at the first stroke, but that is very uncommon; for the hawks preferred for hare hunting are taught to pounce and buffet the game, not to seize it, and they rise a little between each attack, to descend again with fresh force. In this manner the game is confused and retarded, till the greyhounds come in.
Russell.
The Shaheen or Falcon Gentle, flies at a more dangerous game. Were there not, says the elder Russell, several gentlemen now in England to bear witness to the truth of what I am going to relate, I should hardly venture to assert that with this bird, which is about the size of a pigeon, they sometimes take large Eagles. The Hawk in former times was taught to seize the Eagle under his pinion, and thus depriving him of the use of one wing, both birds fell to the ground together: but I am informed the present mode is to teach the Hawk to fix on the back between the wings, which has the same effect, only that the bird tumbling down more slowly, the Falconer has more time to come in to his Hawk’s assistance; but in either case, if he be not very expeditious, the Falcon is inevitably destroyed.
Dr. Patrick Russell says, this sport was disused in his time, probably from its ending more frequently in the death of the Falcon than of the Eagle. But he had often seen the Shaheen take Herons and Storks. “The hawk when thrown off flies for some time in a horizontal line not six feet from the ground, then mounting perpendicularly with astonishing swiftness, he seizes his prey under the wing, and both together come tumbling to the ground. If the Falconer is not expeditious the game soon disengages itself.
We saw about twenty antelopes, which, however, were so very shy, that we could not get near enough to have a shot, nor do I think it possible to take them without hawks, the mode usually practised in those countries. The swiftest greyhounds would be of no use, for the antelopes are much swifter of foot than any animal I ever saw before.
Jackson’s Journey over Land.