Whether the young hawk takes the crane herself, or whether after a few stoops the make-hawk arrives and first binds to the crane, matters not in the least.
On no account must you this season, i.e., up to Spring, fly your hawk at a large flock of crane, for the combination of cranes is like that of no other living thing, and your hawk is only in her second year.
In the opinion of the author, a young falcon in the first year is better than an “intermewed” one of one moult,[624] for the young hawk[625] is “ignorant” and “mad”; it will obey any order that is given her and will fly any “train” that is shown to her. After one moult, however, she has learnt a few falconer’s stratagems and is not easily deluded: if she has not yet learnt all there is to know, she will have done so by the time she is past her second moult.[626]
Now if you fly your valuable passage hawk (of one moult) at a large flock of crane, say a flock consisting of thirty or forty, more or less, she, being plucky and keen on this quarry, will single out and “bind” to one. If you and your mounted companions are up in time, all is well; but if not, the flock will so buffet and bang the hawk that she may be completely cowed. If by nature high-spirited, she will become cunning;[627] if not naturally plucky she will be spoilt beyond re-making. If such an accident does happen, and your hawk suffers, the remedy is to fly her, ten or fifteen times, with a good make-hawk, and then, somehow or other, to manage to take with her alone in the Spring two or three more cranes. However, there is a great risk in flying a passage saker in the Spring[628] whether she be a young hawk or whether an “intermewed”[629] one of one moult; therefore be content with taking only two or three cranes. If one day your passage falcon works hard in the heat[630] and fails to kill, you will hardly succeed in recovering her: she will depart. For this reason you must not be impatient but be satisfied with only two or three cranes. When your hawk has so killed, feed her up well, place your trust in God, and set her down to moult. After the second moult she is your obedient bond-slave, and she has learnt, too, all there is to know of her business.
When you take her out of this second moult, you must, by some means or other, manage to take with her, first a common heron. Next you must, with an old hawk, take a common crane, and on the spot give it as a “train,” flying the hawk at it in such a way that she thinks it is a wild one. Now, in this third season, your hawk is thoroughly and completely trained.
To guard against accidents,[631] you should every year keep a good young passage-saker and train her to the flight of the common heron, so that should any accident happen to one of your crane-hawks, you will have by you a youngster all ready for being entered to crane. If you omit to take this precaution, you will some year lose a whole season’s sport. Your “mews” should contain hawks trained to various quarry, whether your hawks are sakers or shāhīns.
As soon as your passage saker singles out and binds to one crane, out of a flock of say thirty or forty, all its companions will attack her and release their comrade. If the hawk knows her business, she will at once release the crane, and waiting on above the flock will not lose sight of the particular crane to which she bound[632] until you arrive on the spot and again put up the cranes. She will then again stoop at her selected quarry, when again all the cranes will attack her and release the captured bird. You must all gallop as hard as you can; neither pit, nor well, nor stream must hinder you. You must not draw rein till you are right in the midst of the fray, when every sportsman should unhood and cast off his saker or peregrine at the quarry that is nearest to him. I myself have often, out of a flock of five, taken four; often, too, have we knocked over birds with sticks and clubs. As for shooting them, that is quite easy.
There is no bird to equal the common crane in valour and a fine sense of honour; when your bālābān takes one, if there are a hundred others in the air, they will one and all drop from the sky like a stooping shāhīn, attack your hawk, and perhaps kill her: till they release their captured comrade they will not again take the air. This is how it is that five, or six, or seven, cranes out of a “herd” can be secured or killed. Ah! had a sovereign but five thousand cavalry possessed of the valour and resolution of the common crane, he could conquer the world. Well, as I said, you and your men must gallop hard, not funking wells, and streams, and holes.
You must know that there is no sport more difficult than that of the saker and crane, but there is also none better; none, except that of the lion with a buffalo, and the cheetah with a gazelle.[633] I have hunted many a lion and seen trouble therefrom, for the sport is inauspicious; for the lion is the King of Beasts, and His Highness the Commander of the Faithful[634] (on whom be peace) is styled the Lion of God. Hence the sport of the lion is baleful, and he that follows it will certainly see no good; still it’s a fine sport; I have tried it—but my advice to you is on no account to do so, else you will regret it, for no benefit accrues therefrom.