Falconry in the East. 3569 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Falconry in the East.* 



Were it not that the author is so proud of his knowledge of orien- 

 tal tongues that he thinks it desirable to display the said knowledge 

 by a constant admixture of Indianee words with his narrative, this 

 would be a most agreeable addition both to the Zoology and Falconry 

 of the East : but when a man is so delighted with having made out 

 that " goolab," in some of the thousand and one dialects in which In- 

 dia rejoices, is the equivalent of yellow in English, that he must needs 

 prate of a hawk's having a " goolab eye," we find his affectation all 

 but insufferable, and devoutly wish that he were confined to the use 

 of plain English for the remaining term of his natural life. We breathe 

 this aspiration with the more especial zest, because we see that the 

 lieutenant has good matter in him — matter which he is willing to im- 

 part, and which he would be more able to impart were it not for this 

 strange conceit. It is true that he renders back into English every 

 word that he has first rendered unintelligible to Englishmen : thus, a 

 foot-note informs us that "goolab" is yellow; "kawla" a crow; "baz- 

 dar" afalconer; "kang"acrow ; "div sapid" the white fiend; "laza" 

 hit ; " maloon " the cursed, &c. ; but this clanjamfry of words is per- 

 petually distracting the attention, without giving a crumb of informa- 

 tion that any one except Elihu Burritt would care to pick up. 



Having relieved our mind by this free expression of opinion ; and 

 having risked his indignation thereby ; we shall probably find the 

 author making us his quarry and flying his tooruratee with the goolab 

 eye at us, as though we were a khargosh or a karotittar on a pippal 

 in a shikargah of his own : indeed, to speak freely and more in the 

 Anglo-Saxon vernacular, our criticisms may perchance induce him to 

 administer to us a literary drubbing, like that which he has bestowed 

 on the offending editor of the 'Athenaeum.' But to our tale : here is 

 a specimen of our author's style, and a very animated specimen too, 

 one at which none of our readers will cavil. 



" We were jogging very prettily, I began to think, along the beaten 

 track of oriental conversation, when our course was arrested by an un- 

 foreseen incident. Instead of the occasional cawings and croakings 

 of crows, to which the ear of the Indian traveller by habit speedily 



* 



'Falconry in the Valley of the Indus.' By Bichabd F. Bubton, Lieut. Bom- 

 bay Army. London : Van Voorst, 1852. 



x. 2l 



