CHAPTER XXXI

ANECDOTES OF A BAGHDAD FALCONER

ANECDOTES OF A BAGHDAD FALCONER.—There is a well-known story of a famous falconer of Baghdad, named _Sayyid Adham_. For a long time he was blessed with no offspring, but at length the Lord of the World bestowed on him one son. At the time of our story, the boy had arrived at the age of two years, and had conceived a great affection and fascination for a certain _bālābān_, the property of his father.

A hawk-catcher[417] had captured a fine _bālābān-i aḥmar-i shāmī_, a young passage falcon, and had carried it as a “present”[418] to _Dā,ūd_, the Pasha of Baghdad.

_Sayyid Adham_, the Grand Falconer,[419] was summoned and the hawk made over to him with directions to train it to gazelle. He took it to his home, named it “Meteor,” and unseeled its eyes on the third day.

In the morning, he was seated at the edge of the sunshine,[420] his new hawk preening her feathers, etc., in the manner I have just described. He was, of course, watchful that his unmanned hawk should not be suddenly scared; for you must know that, should a new hawk be suddenly scared, it is difficult to efface from her memory[421] the remembrance of the fright, and she is perhaps spoilt for ever after. While the hawk was engaged in her preening, _Sayyid Adham_ was suddenly horrified to see his small two-year-old son toddling towards him. Quietly intervening himself between the boy and the hawk he beckoned to the former to come to him. As soon as the child came up to him, he deftly took his head under his arm and kept it there till the hawk, having finished her toilet, was fed and rehooded. He released his son and found that the poor child had been suffocated:—

To save his hawk from starting in alarm He seized the child and thrust him ’neath his arm, And pressing tight and tighter in his dread, He killed the boy by crushing up his head.

Though I myself never saw the _Sayyid_,[422] I was well acquainted with his immediate descendants. In training _bālābān_ to gazelle they had no equal, and were justly proud of their skill. They used to pride themselves on the incident narrated above as being a proof of their father’s devotion to sport.

BET WITH THE PASHA.—It is also well known that _Sayyid Adham_ once laid a wager with the Pasha of Baghdad that he would, within twelve days, fly at gazelle, with success, a certain newly caught _bālābān_. He did so; on the twelfth day, in the presence of the Pasha, the _bālābān_ took its first gazelle in noble style, and the _Sayyid_ his wager. Only a falconer knows the difficulty of taking a wild gazelle with a passage falcon _within twelve days of its capture_.[423]

Concerning these two matters God is the Knower[424]—but all the old men[425] of Baghdad bore constant testimony to their truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[417] _Ṣayyād_, Ar., as comprehensive a word as _shikārchī_; _vide_ page 54, note 216.

[418] _Pīshkash_, “present,” a polite word for “sale.” The Pasha would give him a “present” in return. Such is the etiquette.

[419] _Qūsh-chī Bāshī._

[420] _Bar-i āftāb_, _i.e._, in the shade (or half in the shade), but close to the sunshine.

[421] “... And thereby catch some sudden fear, which at the first you ought to be careful to prevent, for it is hard to work that out again which she is suffered to take at the first, and most commonly she will be subject to it ever after, whether it be good or evil.”—_Latham._