CHAPTER LXIX
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

If wheat be soaked three times in the froth of a mast camel and then dried and given to birds to eat, they will fall senseless. Also if beans be boiled in rats-bane,[802] and then scattered in a spot where common cranes, and wild geese, and crows, and choughs collect, those that eat thereof will fall down in a swoon, and if left alone will become ḥarām.[803] When you take these birds, cut their throats and at once rip open the stomach and cast away the contents, so that the poison may not spread to the flesh.[804]

If you lose a hawk when out hawking and do not recover her till the next day or a few days after, know that, whether she be a young hawk of the year or a moulted[805] hawk, she will ever after be a trouble to you, for her nature will have changed for the worse, especially if she has preyed for herself while out. As for me, I would not keep her; my friends may please themselves.

Perchance some night your hawk may wanton prove,
And leaving place and keeper seek to rove.
Moreover, oh! my friend, should vagrant prey
Fall to her beak as quarry while astray;
Think not, howe’er you worry, to retain
Your hawk, that she can ever fly again.
Beshrew the jade! I would not have her so,
Not as a gift, though friends might scarce say “No.”
When garden trees run riot o’er the wall
The gardener brings his axe and fells them all.
To me, the noblest bird of all is she,
That ever sits on friends’ hands willingly.
May this Bāz-Nāma, written thus by me,
When I am dust, keep green my memory.
I wrote it in the Great Shāh’s golden days,
The King whose orders Heaven itself obeys;
High Rank and Fortune riding rein to rein,
With honour and with glory swell his train;
The game of courage captive in his noose:
His strength is mighty and his gifts profuse;
His barbéd arrows are God’s swift decrees;
His butts the lives of all his enemies.
His strength of arm is such as angels know,
The curvéd sky he uses as his bow.
When Heaven itself to praise the Shāh would fail,
What can Mushtāqī’s[806] humble verse avail?

This book, by the aid of the Munificent King, was finished on the day of Wednesday, in the month of Zū ’l-Qaʿda the Sacred, in the year 1285[807] of the Flight of the Prophet; and it contains the Views and Experience of Taymūr Mīrzā, son of Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā, and bearer of the title of Governor of the Province of Fārs.

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PRINTED FOR BERNARD QUARITCH, 11, GRAFTON STREET, LONDON, W.,
BY G. NORMAN AND SON, FLORAL STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C.

FOOTNOTES:

[802] Marg-i mūsh, P., or sammu ’l-fār, Ar. (lit. “death to mice”) is “white arsenic.”

[803] i.e., they will die of their own accord and so be “unlawful” for food.

[804] “If you desire to take House doves, Stock doves, Rooks, Choughs, or any other Birds, then take Wheat, Barley, Fetches, Tares, or other Grain, and boil them very well with good store of Nux Vomica, in ordinary running water. When they are almost boiled, dry and ready to burst, take them off the Fire and set them by till they be thoroughly cold. Having so done scatter this grain in the Haunts of those Birds you have a mind to take; and as soon as they have tasted thereof, they will fall down in a dead sound, and shall not be able to recover themselves in a good while. And as you take these Great Land-fowl with this Drunken Device, so you shall take the middle and smaller Sort of Birds, if you observe to boil with what Food they delight in, a quantity of this Nux Vomica.” Further on, the same writer says that “Lees of Wine,” can be substituted for Nux Vomica, and also that the grain may be steeped in the “Juice of Hemlock, adding thereto some Henbane seed or poppy seed, causing them to be infused therein four or five days.” “How to recover a fowl thus entranced:—If you would restore these entranced Fowl to their former Health, take a quantity of Sallet-oyle, according to the strength and Bigness of the Fowl and drop it down the throat of the Fowl; then chafe the Head with a little strong White-wine-vinegar, and the Fowl will presently recover and be as well as ever.”—From the Gentleman’s Recreation, by Richard Blome.

[805] By “moulted” (t̤ulakī) the author probably means “intermewed.”

[806] Mushtāqī, the author’s tak͟halluṣ or poetical nom de plume.

[807] Corresponding to A.D. 1868.

XXV
HUNTING AND HAWKING SCENE
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

Illustrations without captions have had an alt-text description added, this is denoted with parentheses.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 10: Added second “as” in “as well as in affection”
Footnote 151: Replaced “Turk-Orientale” with “Turk-Oriental”
Footnote 175: Removed duplicate “at” from “one bird at at a time”
Footnote 180: Replaced “Ezerum” with “Erzerum”
Pg 58: Replaced “skikār-chīs” with “shikār-chīs”
Footnote 277: “Albion” corrected to “Albin”
Pg 73: Replaced “short-winded” with “short-winged”
Pg 80: Replaced “too” with “to” in “may pass too and fro”
Pg 85: Added “is” in “for this a mistake”
Pg 139: Replaced “that” with “than” in “better for this flight that the intermewed hawk”
Pg 143: Replaced “made-hawk” with “make-hawk”
Pg 147: Replaced “cammon crane” with “common crane”
Footnote 750: Replaced “hardan” with “kardan”