Mav 27, 1909] 



XA TURE 



571 



.4 PERSIAN TREATISE ON FALCONRY.' 



ALTHOUGH the ancient sport of falconry is still 

 upheld to a limited extent in western Europe, 

 it is to the East that we must turn at the present day 

 if we would see " the pride and pomp and circum- 

 stance " that continues to attend a diversion practised 

 from the remotest ages. The Arabs probably learnt 

 the art from the Persians ; for not only do many j 

 Arabic MSS. state that the first falconer was a 

 Persian, but many of their technical terms relating 1 

 to the sport are borrowed from the Persian language, j 

 In India, too, where hawking has always been popular 

 with the native princes, the te.xt- 

 books (MS. or lithographed) are 

 not in Hindustani, as might be 

 supposed, but in Persian, although 

 very corrupt, and disfigured by 

 Punjabi and Sindhi idioms and 

 technical terms. It is probably 

 for this reason that these MSS. 

 have remained so long untrans- 

 lated; for it is certain that no one 

 but a Persian scholar, who is like- 

 wise a proficient falconer, could 

 attempt the task of translation 

 with any chance of making him- 

 self understood. 



Col. Phillott, in his preface to 

 another work, the " Qawanin" 

 's-Sayyad," published last year in 

 the '' Bibliotheca Indica," says, 

 " Had I not been a practical fal- 

 coner of more than twenty years' 

 experience of falconry in the East, 

 I would not have ventured to edit 

 the present text." This admission 

 applies with even greater force to 

 the " Baz-Nama-yi-Nasirl," of 

 which his translation is now 

 before us; for treating, as it does, 

 of the art of hawking, it is full 

 of technical terms inseparable 

 from the sport, with descriptions 

 of the Persian method of captur- 

 ing and training hawks, and 

 treating their ailments, which no 

 one but a falconer would properly 

 understand. Thus it would be 

 difficult to find a more competent 

 translator and editor for such a 

 work than Col. Phillott. 



We learn from his introduc- 

 tion that the present work is of 

 no antiquity, having been com- 

 posed in 1868, when the author 

 was sixty-four. It was originally 

 lithographed in Teheran, and a 

 second (and perhaps a third) 

 edition was lithographed in Bom- 

 bay. The present translation 

 has been made from the Teheran 

 text. 



The author was Taymur Mirza, a Persian prince 

 of some celebrity, who, in 1836, accompanied by two 

 of his brothers, paid a visit to the court of William 

 the Fourth on a political mission, in which they 

 succeeded, through the good offices of Lord Palmer- 

 ston, eventually returning to Baghdad. Devoted from 

 his youth to field sports, the author was well received 

 bv the Shah (Nasir 'd Din Shah), and became a 

 constant companion in his sjxjrting expeditions. In 



Persia and around Baghdad the name of Taymur 

 Mirza is still "a household word." It was not until 

 quite late in life that he began to think of writing 

 down his experiences as a falconer, to leave " as a 

 memento for all lovers of the sport, whether tyros or 

 experts." " Sixty-four years of my life," he writes, 

 " have now passed, all spent in hunting and shooting. 

 I have had no hobby but sport, no recreation but it." 

 He died in 1874 at the age of seventy. 



His work, relating as it does to a special branch of 

 sport, naturally appeals most strongly to those for 

 whom it was designedly writdn ; Imt, putting aside 



. — From at, Old Pel 



I "TheBM-Nilma-yi-l 

 lated by Licul.-Col D. 

 Quaritch, 1908.) Price 2 



NO. 2065, 



"Pp. xxiv + 195. 



VOL. 80] 



technicalities, the general reader cannot fail to be 

 amused with the anecdotes which are told of sport 

 in Persia, as well as with the quaintness of oriental 

 diction. Thus, speaking of a worthless hawk that 

 defied his best efforts as a trainer, the author says 

 (p. 39), " What could be the cause of her extraordin- 

 ary behaviour? Puzzled and perplexed, I buried my 

 head in the collar of leflection determined to unravel 

 the tangled skein of the difficulty," &c. 



To criticise any of the methods or devices of Persian 

 falconers would here be out of place, though there 

 are many passages which suggest comment. The 



