Falconry in the Valley of the Indus Richard Francis Burton First edition of 1852.
John van Voorst, London. PDF Page images. PREFACE. THE Knight no longer rides out with hawk on fist, and falconers, and cages, and greyhounds behind, to chase the swift curlew, or to strike down the soaring heron. In these piping days of peace and civilization "The pointer ranges, and the said Knight beats
In russet jacket," his broad acres, well stocked with barn-door partridges, or,-if an ambitious man, he gets up a. pheasant-battue for greater excitement. And the knight's lady, instead of mounting her fiery jennet, with merlin clasping her embroidered glove, thinks a drive round Hyde Park, or a canter down Rotten Row, quite sufficient exercise in these times for her highly nervous and thoroughly civilized constitution. "A handful is a sample of a heap," say the Persians. This specimen of a change in the Knight's and his Lady's habits is a fair measure of the difference between the days of our ancestors and our own. So Falconry can scarcely be considered a popular subject now. Yet there are many gentlemen in England who would willingly see the good old sport conjured up from its black letter sepulture. They love the look of the thing, the pomp of its apparatus, the excitement of witnessing the combined working of horses, hawks and hounds; and above all things, the pleasing novelty of the ancient diversion. I only wonder that the taste is not a more general one amongst us. In the Netherlands we see a better example-royalty itself not disdaining at times to exchange the sceptre for the glove. | |
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