The death of the gazelle is now considered the highest triumph of Eastern falconry:
Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur the remainder of that day was almost as lively a companion as a subaltern newly returned from "seeing service." He slew his antelope some twenty successive deaths, praised to the skies everything that was his especially; more especially his Bashahs, his falconer, his dogs, his dogkeeper; most especially as her due, his goshawk. As regards the latter, a little romancing was allowed to mingle its alloy with the pure vein of veritable history. Every bough we saw on our way home reminded him of some doubtful exploit performed by that same Shahbaz. At dinner, the gazelle steaks brought her mention prominently forward, and the music, wine, and joviality of the evening elevating him, also tended in no small degree to elevate her and her qualities. At last it was proposed to try her upon one of the wild goats that roam over the deserts separating Cutch from Scinde.
"Her success," said the Ameer, "is certain."
"Certain," repeated Kakoo Mall.
"Certain," nodded Hari Chand, whispering: "the gazelle of this year, next year will be a Gorkhar!"
Whether the sneer has, or has not been justified, I know not. Perhaps it may so happen that in some day to come the Ameer Ibrahim, seduced by the gobemouche auditory of a wonder-loving British traveller, may point to the bird in question with a
"You see that Shahbaz? Well, Wallah! By the beard of the Prophet I swear to you, five years ago she felled a wild ass. You may believe me; although a Beloch, 1 do not tell a lie. Billah! A 'man-with-a-hat' was with me when it happened. Ask Burton Sahib, if it did not."
Then will Kakoo Mall, if he be living, ejaculate "certainly," and Hari Chand, if he be present, exclaim "certainly;" and, in a word, every man and boy that has ears to hear and eyes to see, will re-echo "certainly," and swear himself an eye-witness of the event, to the extreme confusion of Fact and Fiction.
We doubt much, however, if the reader will peruse this account of the death of the antelope without a pang. Mr. Burton says, "There is an eternal sameness in the operation of shooting, which must make it—one would suppose—very uninteresting to any but those endowed with an undue development of destructiveness." And Colonel Bonham, of the 10th Hussars, we are told by Mr. Knox, has laid aside the gun and the rifle for the enjoyment of the "noble craft;" but the gun has at least the advantage of putting a bird, generally speaking, out of misery at once. ^Who can read the following conclusion of a combat between a Khairu, a hobby-hawk, and a crow, without feeling for the victims of the sport?
The battle is not finished. Corvus, in spite of his fall, his terror, a rent in the region of the back, and several desperate pecks, still fights gallantly. This is the time for the falconer to assist his bird. From the neighbouring mimosas, roused by the cries of their wounded comrade, pours forth a "rabble rout" of crows, with noise and turmoil, wheeling over the hawk's head, and occasionally pouncing upon her, unguibus et rostris, with all the ferocity of hungry peregrines. We tremble for Khairu. Knowing her danger, we hurry on, as fast as our legs can carry us, shouting, shooting pellets, and anathematising the crows. We arrive, but hardly in time. As we plunge through the last bushes which separate us from the hawk, twenty cawers rise flurriedly from the ground: the Bazdar hurries to his Laghar. The quarry lies stone dead, but poor Khairu, when taken up and inspected by thirty pair of eyes, is found to have lost her sight, and to be otherwise so grievously mauled, pecked, and clawed, that the most sanguine prepare themselves for her present decease.
Alas, poor Khairu!
