She becomes, in attack, like a lion uncaged.
If an eyess chark͟h has once been frightened on the ground and driven off by an hubara, nothing will ever induce her to take this quarry on the ground. But a skilful falconer may cast off the chark͟h so expertly that she takes the quarry in the air within a few yards’ distance.[510]
In short, as soon as your hawk is so thoroughly entered to hubara that she will take six or seven in a day, you must go out and fly her at as many hubara as you can, but do not feed her: even though you fly her thirty times[511] with success, do not feed her. Go on flying her till she is utterly disgusted and will not attempt even to follow the quarry. As soon as you see this, bring up a gazelle fawn with meat tied on its head, as previously described in the chapter on training the passage saker. As soon as the chark͟h binds to the gazelle’s head, kill a fowl or a white pigeon, and feed her up so that she may learn the pleasure to be derived from taking a gazelle.
You must proceed with the training of the eyess as you did with the passage saker, but there are two or three points of difference. First: if the passage hawk binds at the first or second entering, she must be fed up; but the eyess must not be fed up, otherwise she will contract a habit and will always have to be fed up. Second: if the eyess follows the gazelle and works well but the greyhounds go wrong, she will certainly, when worn out, sit down;[512] you must then and there lure her and feed her up. Third: if the eyess works hard several times but is disappointed, and so no longer follows gazelle with her former zest, you must cure her as follows. Go and take two or three hubara with her, one a day, and feed her up on them. On the third or fourth day fly her at all the hubara you can without feeding her, till she is worn out or disgusted. Then, as on the first day, fly her at the gazelle’s head, feeding her up. After that let her rest for a day or two. Next, take into the open country a gazelle fawn that is quick and active, and secretly release it at a distance. After it set a dog, or a young greyhound too slow to overtake it. When the gazelle fawn gets to some distance, gallop after it and slip the greyhounds as you do when hawking wild gazelle,[513] and cast off the chark͟h. When the gazelle is taken, feed up the hawk as before, that she may learn the advantage to be derived from taking this quarry and return to a liking for it. The object of entering a chark͟h to hubara is as has been stated.
XX
HUBARA SUNNING ITSELF
You may think to yourself, “I will fly my eyess at hare as has been described for the passage hawk!”[514] Now, my pupil, on no account must you do this; fly her not at hare, for this is error. First, the nature of the passage hawk is noble, while the nature of the eyess is ignoble. If, after the disappointment that your eyess has experienced at gazelle, you fly her at hare with success, you must of necessity feed her up; and as the gazelle and the hare are both ground-game[515] and akin, your hawk will say to herself, “Why should I not henceforth fly only the easier quarry? No stamped bond have I given to the Court to wrestle[516] with that other kind of jackass!”[517] The hubara, on the contrary, is not ground-game,[518] nor has the eyess in a wild state preyed on it as has the passage hawk. By taking one or two hubara, the eyess recovers her keenness and pluck, but, on the third or fourth day, when she is overflown at hubara and unrewarded, she gets disgusted with that particular quarry; being then flown at a gazelle’s head and rewarded, she re-transfers her attention to that quarry, and by being afterwards given an easy bagged fawn, her affection for the quarry is cemented.
The system of training the chark͟h and the bālābān to gazelle is this that has been described, and it is the system of the falconers of Baghdad and of the Nomad Arabs, who are masters of this particular sport. But the people of Turkistan and Khurasan and Buzhnurd,[519] being unskilled, have a different system, and that, too, for the eyess only; for they are quite unable to train the passage saker to take even one gazelle.
Another System of Training the “Chark͟h” to Gazelle.—Their system is this. First they dig a dry canal about three or four ells[520] deep, and four hundred or five hundred paces long. At the end, a recess or chamber is constructed, sufficiently large to contain a gazelle that is brought and confined there. A rope is tied to the gazelle’s leg, and the gazelle is, step by step, driven and beaten so that it flees to take refuge in this chamber at the farther end. This treatment is continued till the beginning of Autumn, when the people commence giving “trains”[521] to their eyess sakers.
The gazelle’s head is protected from the hawk’s claws[522] by a piece of leather that has two holes to admit the horns, and on this leather the meat is securely fastened. The gazelle, released in the canal at the required distance from the chamber according to the progress the young hawk has made, is obliged to run straight and take refuge in its accustomed retreat. If, during the run, the chark͟h binds to the meat on its head, the rope is pulled and the chark͟h fed up on the “train’s” head. One gazelle can act as a “train”[523] for twenty chark͟h.