The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-01-12


Excitement ran high as we APP
preached the KanaGts, for we had al
ready seen pigeons ascending and de-
scending the shafts in the distance.
When we arrived near enough, two re-
taiuers were sent on in advance to
scare the pigeons out of their hiding
places. This they would do by throw
ing stones down the shafts. The shafts
were but one hundred yards apart. and
when the farrGsheS threw stones and
shouted down the shaft, il there were
any pigeons there they would futter
along the water-tunnel and fly up the
next one.
We had not been ut the KanGqts above
five minutes when up flew brace OF
pigeons from shaft about a hundred
and fifty yards away. As the pigeons
rose in the air, q pair of falcons, whose
eyes had already been united, were
turned loose after them. With swift,
eager fight they gave chase and in a
short time were winging their way in
close, hot pursuit. The pigeons ap-
peared to become bewildered with ter
ror, and instead of Fastening away in
straight, rapid fight. circled around
and mounted in short, eccentric curves.
Now mounting higher, now diving
swiftly downward, fitting hither and
thither, as though in their terror they
fancied themselves surrounded on all
sides with hawks in vengeful pursuit,
the pigeons tried to elude their falcon
foes. Like evil spirits logging their
every movement, however, the eager
birds of prey pursued their game.
Sometimes a falcon would seem to us
to have secured his victim. but the
next moment would find the pigeon
again with many yard of blue sky
between him and his enemy, and the
falcon still in hot chase after him.
Once or twice we saw feathers fly and
then we knew the end was not far off.
Presently we saw one of the falcons
make short, hurried swoop, and the
next minute he was winging his labored
flight toward our party, bearing in his
talons one of the pigeons. The pigeon
was barely dead when he reached us;
but one OF the Koords at once ripped
him open and fed his quivering liver to
the victorious falcon.
The other falcon still doggedly pur-
sued his prey, but he never brought it
home. We saw the pigeon descend
with the rapidity of q falling rocket
stick to earth, and we saw the falcon
swoop after it with that rapid cycloid
curve peculiar to birds of prey; but he
returned to us without the pigeon.
Some of the party were of the opinion
that the pigeon. in sheer desperation,
had flung himself recklessly headlong
from a height of several hundred feet
into one of the Kanddt shafts, and thus
escaped. Others thought that he had
fallen dead, and, failing to overtake
the body in its fall through mid-air,
the falcon has disdained to pick the
carcass up from the ground.
1 remained with the party for an
hour or two, and witnessed several
pretty flights, in which the pigeons
were captured. The Koordish sports
man, hospitable to the last degree,
urged me to take halt the catch, as
babe them farewell to continue on my
journey. Unwilling to take so large a
share, and, moreover, not wishing to
carry so many on my bicycle, / selected
a pair of nice, plump young pigeons,
which had cooked for my supper at
the caravanserai, where l remained
over that night.
Abbas Khan, the British political
agent at Meshed, is very fond of hawk
ing. When was in Meshed, he told
me of hawking expedition he had
recently taken with Mardan Khan,
Chief of the Timurees. and few other
Khorassani noblemen. Meshed is
very holy city, owing to the gold
domed sanctuary of Imam Ria being
there. The pigeons and birds about
Meshed have acquired tho odor OF
sanctity, from the probability of their
having sometime perched upon the
golden dome OF the Imam's mesjid.
And so no falconing is allowed in the
vicinity, for fear of doing violence to
the memory of the Mohammedan saint
by the destruction OF pigeons that had
themselves become sacred from settling
on his sanctuary.
Antelope were among the game pur-
sued by Abbas Khan and his friends,
and in the pursuit they used Persian
grayhounds and falcons. The Persian
greyhound is lank but extremely
graceful animal. with "feathered" ears
and feet. He is quite as swift and per-
haps swifter than those OF our own
country. but then so is the Persian
antelope. The falcons, however, are
swift enough to overtake either with
the greatest Of ease.
The falcons are trained to pursue the
fleeing antelope, and retard their
flight by attacking them savagely in
the face. Bewildered by the falcons,
the antelope loses ground rapidly by
false movements. and finds himself
struggling for life with the greyhounds
much soon than would have been his
fate but for the aid rendered by the
falcons Thomas StevenS, in Youths