[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