112 DISPOSITION OF THE ( MANGEUR DE SERPENS'. 



me of the striking portrait drawn by the author of the Book 

 of Job. I shall venture to repeat it, since the words will give 

 life and action to the sketch that is to accompany these pages. 



" * Who hath loosed the bonds of the wild ass ? whose 

 house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his 

 dwellings ? He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither 

 regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the 

 mountain is his pasture/ 



" I was informed by the mehmandar, who had been in the 

 desert when making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Ali, that 

 the wild ass of Irak Arabi differs in nothing from the one I 

 had just seen. He had observed them often, for a short time, 

 in the possession of the Arabs, who told him the creature 

 was perfectly untameable. A few days after this discussion, 

 we saw another of these animals, and pursuing it determi- 

 nately, had the good fortune, after a hard chase, to kill it and 

 bring it to our quarters. From it I completed my sketch. 

 The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, in his most admirable 

 account of the kingdom of Caubul, mentions this highly pic- 

 turesque creature under the name of Goorkhur; describing it 

 as an inhabitant of the desert between India and Afghanistan 

 or Caubul. It is called Gour by the Persians, and is usually 

 seen in herds, though often single, straying away, as the one 

 I first saw, in the wantonness of liberty. " Vol. i. page 459. 



This animal was met with in the first instance soon after 

 Sir Robert Porter had entered, from the northward, into the 

 province of Tars, called by the ancients Persis, or Persia 

 Proper. 



disposition of the e mangeur de serpens' (Secretary 

 Falcon) . 



[From Le Vaillant's Oiseaux d'Afrique, vol. i. p. 109.] 



<e When taken young, this bird soon becomes familiar, and 

 readily feeds itself; it lives with the poultry, and if care is 

 taken to feed it plentifully, it does them no harm ; but if, on 

 the contrary, it be left to famish, the pullets and young ducks 

 very soon become his prey ; it is only the want of them 

 which makes him do any mischief, if indeed it is mischief to 

 provide for his own subsistence. It is not his nature to be 



horse again approached them they did the same as before ; so that it was 

 impossible to take them, unless the hunters, having stationed themselves 

 at intervals, should relieve each other, and continue the chase in succession 

 with fresh horses. And the flesh of those which were taken was like veni- 

 son, but more tender. — Xenoph. Anab. ib. 



