288 THE COOKERY OF VENISON 



flesh. But his sight was defective though the teeth 

 were sound, and we may assume, also, that the 

 sense of smell was failing. No doubt, in the sultry 

 climate of Palestine, there was no possibility of hang- 

 ing meat, otherwise neither venison nor the delusive 

 kid would have been brought straight from ' the field ' 

 to the table. But the upshot of that eventful piece 

 of deception was, that Esau, having been robbed of 

 his birthright, turned his back upon pastoral pursuits. 

 He became the chief of a race of hunters, and the 

 father of the roving Edomites, with their hand against 

 every man. They multiplied and spread over the 

 wildernesses of Mesopotamia, and the sandy wastes of 

 the Arabian deserts. Then what between hunger and 

 greed, when fired by the match of fanaticism, they 

 broke out of their deserts under the prophet of God, 

 and threatened to overrun Europe with their locust- 

 like swarms. So that had Esau come home half an 

 hour sooner with his haunch of venison or hind-quarter 

 of antelope, the destinies of great part of the world 

 would have been altered. No Count Julian would 

 ever have opened Europe to the Arab hosts ; the 

 Alhambra, the Alcazar of Seville, the many-coloured 

 mosque of Cordova, would never have been built in 

 the quaint magnificence of Oriental architecture ; the 

 Vega of Granada arid the Huerta of Valencia might 



