78 THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 



her baby into her breast, and shutting her eyes, and 

 smiting her forehead, the sorely bewildered creature 

 said in a low voice, * Am I wauken O tell me if I'm 

 wauken, or if a' this be the wark o' a fever, and the 

 delirium o' a dream ? ' ' 



The strength of wing and muscular vigour of the 

 eagle are truly astonishing. The flesh has not, as some 

 have alleged, any offensive smell or taste, but it re- 

 sembles a bundle of cords, and cannot be eaten. Some 

 notion of its power may be formed from the statement 

 of Ramond, when he had ascended Mont Perdu, the 

 loftiest of the Pyrenees, and nearly three miles above 

 the level of the sea. He had for a considerable distance 

 bid adieu to every living thing, animal or vegetable ; 

 but right over the summit there was a golden eagle far 

 above him, dashing rapidly to windward against a 

 strong gale, and apparently in her element and at her 

 ease. 



In the regions which she inhabits, the golden eagle, 

 like the lion, owns no superior but man, and she owns 

 him as such only on account of his intellectual re- 

 sources. When taken ever so young, there is no very 

 well authenticated account of the taming of an eagle. 

 The wandering hordes to the eastward of the Caspian 

 sea, do, indeed, train eagles to hunt both game and 

 wild beasts ; and Marco Polo, the father of modern 

 travellers, who, in the early part of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury, spent six and twenty years in a pilgrimage over 

 the east, and revealed the wonders of the whole, as far 

 as Cathay or China itself, records the eagle hunts at 

 the court of the Great Khan of Tartary, as among the 



