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 «f 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. 
In 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 
