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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
398
MARCO POLO BOOK II.
catch them in great numbers. But those especially that
are trained to wolf-catching are very large and powerful
birds, and no wolf is able to get away from them.'
~►
f
NOTE 1.--The Cheeta or Hunting-Leopard, still kept for the chase by native noblemen in India, is an animal very distinct from the true leopard. It is much more lanky and long-legged than the pure felines, is unable to climb trees, and has claws only partially retractile. Wood calls it a link between the feline and canine races. One thousand Cheetas were attached to Akbar's hunting establishment ; and the chief one, called Semend-Manik, was carried to the field in a palankin with a kettledrum beaten before him. Boldensel in the first half of the 14th century speaks of the Cheeta as habitually used in Cyprus ; but, indeed, a hundred years before, these animals had been constantly employed by the Emperor Frederic II. in Italy, and accompanied him on all his marches. They were introduced into France in the latter part of the 15th century, and frequently employed by Lewis XI., Charles VIII., and Lewis XII. The leopards were kept in a ditch of the Castle of Amboise, and the name still borne by a gate hard by, Porte des Lions, is supposed to be due to that circumstance. The Moeurs et Usages du Moyen Age (Lacroix), from which I take the last facts, gives copy of a print by John Stradanus representing a huntsman with the leopard on his horse's crupper, like Kúblái's (supra, F3k. I. eh. lxi.) ; Frederic II. used to say of his Cheetas, " they knew how to ride." This way of taking the Cheeta to the field had been first employed by the Khalif Yazid, son of Moáwiyah. The Cheeta often appears in the pattern of silk damasks of the 13th and 14th centuries, both Asiatic and Italian. (Ayeen Akbery, I. 304, etc. ; Boldensel, in Canisii Thesaurus, by Basnage, vol. IV. p. 339 ; h ina ton's Fred. 11. I. 472, II. 156 ; Bochart, Hierozoica, 797 ; Rock's Catalogue, passim.)
[The hunting equipment of the Sultan consisted of about thirty falconers on horseback who carried each a bird on his fist. These falconers were in front of seven horsemen, who had behind a kind of tamed tiger at times employed by His Highness for hare-hunting, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary by those who are inclined not to believe the fact. It is a thing known by everybody here, and cannot be doubted except by those who admit that they believe nothing of foreign customs. These tigers were each covered with a brocade cloth—and their peaceful attitude, added to their ferocious and savage looks, caused at the same time astonishment and fear in the soul of those whom they looked upon. (journal d'Antoine Galland, trad. par Ch. Schefer, I. p. 135.) The Cheeta (Guej5arda jubata) was, according to Sir W. Jones, first employed in hunting antelopes by Flushing, King of Persia, 865 B.C.— II. C.]
NOTE 2.—The word rendered Lynxes is Leu cervers (G. Text), Louz serviers of Pauthier's MS. C, though he has adopted from another Loups simply, which is certainly wrong. The Geog Latin has " Linceos i.e. lupos cerverios." There is no doubt that the Loup-cervier is the Lynx. Thus Brunetto Latini, describing the Loup-cervier, speaks of its remarkable powers of vision, and refers to its agency in the production of the precious stone called Liguire (i.e. Li zrrium), which the ancients fancied to come from Lync-urizzjn ; the tale is in Theophrastus). Yet the quaint Bestiary of Philip de Thaun, published by Mr. Wright, identifies it with the Greek Hyena :—
" Hyena e Griu num, que nus beste apellum,
Ceo est Lucervere, oler fait et mult est fere."
[The Abbé Armand David writes (Missions Cathol. XXI. 1889, p. 227) that there is in China, from the mountains of Manchuria to the mountains of Tibet, a lynx
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