INTRODUCTION. 19 



ble pasterns and delicate hoofs were ill adapted to the 

 craggy hill-sides and rocky roads of Palestine > was pro- 

 hibited by the great legislator cf the people of the Lord ; 

 and his place was filled by the stiff-jointed, stubborn, long- 

 enduring ass, between whom and the chase there is the 

 least imaginable connection. To the Israelites, as to many 

 oriental peoples, the dog was an unclean animal ; his name 

 a reproach, and himself, instead of the best servant and 

 domestic friend of man, the very outcast and pariah of 

 creation. Lastly, owing to the strictness of the Levitical 

 prohibitions, many of the chief animals of the chase, as the 

 hare, the coney, the wild boar, and not a few of the choi- 

 cest game birds, were forbidden as articles of food to the 

 chosen people. The means, and inducements, to carry on 

 hunting to any profitable or pleasurable extent, seem, there- 

 fore, to have been, alike, wanting to the Israelites; nor, un- 

 der these circumstances, can it be a matter of surprise 

 that it was little, if at all, practised among them. 



Ill the other great kingdoms of the East, however, from 

 the earliest ages, hunting and hawking were practised on 

 the largest and most royal style by the monarchs and their 

 chosen nobles. 



The noble sculptures recently disinterred at Khorsa- 

 bad, in the vicinity of Mosul, and the ruins of Nineveh, 

 contemporaneous with the events described in Holy Writ, 

 abound in delineations of this regal mimicry of war. The 

 histories of the Median, Persian, and Assyrian empires 

 are filled with allusions to the eager spirit of sportsmanship 

 with which the chase was prosecuted at a time, when, " to 

 speak the truth, to ride, and to shoot " were esteemed the 



