the "Book of Falconrie," speaks highly of its qualities. Others designate it a "choice and dainty bird." "Most majestic," says Mr. Burton, "was her attitude as she sat upon the arms of royalty, clasping it with her singles (toes), and firmly resisting the wind -chevuachant le vent, as French falconers express it-with the stiffness of an eagle." Sir Thomas Sebright, however, one of the few living falconers, expresses his surprise that any one should use goshawks for sport; and others insult the bird by declaring that she is only a big sparrow-hawk. The fact is, Mr. Burton says, that a good goshawk is an excellent bird, but, at the same time, as difficult to find good as she is common. Mr. W. B. Barker, who has trained a German goshawk from the Zoological Gardens, and introduced two trained birds into this country from the Taurus, says, that without wishing to detract from the merits of the peregrine or lanner, that, generally speaking, the goshawk will answer the purposes of most sportsmen; and if ever falconry, he says, is revived in England, this bird will be the one to which we must

have recourse.

The goshawk of the Indus is so game a bird, that it will kill even the antelope; a fact of which Mr. Burton gives us a very graphic pen-and-pencil illustration. We can only extract the first :

"Stop!" said the Ameer, painfully excited. "You, Gul Mammad, ride softy round, and place yourself behind the brow of that hill. You, Fauju, to the opposite side."

My friend's acute coup d'œil had marked a pair of antelopes quietly grazing in the bit of green valley far beyond. A glance through the glass assured me that he had not erred; what to the naked eye appeared two formless, yellow marks upon a field of still undried grass, became, by means of the telescope, a pair of those beautiful little beings our poets call "gazelles."

in pursuit, every man straining his eyes to keep the quarry in full view.

The rocky ground, unfavorable to the pursuers, was all the antelope could desire. His long thin legs, almost disproportioned to the size of the body, were scarcely visible, so rapid were their twinkling motions. Here he cleared a air over the topmost twigs of a euphorbium huge boulder of rock, there he plunged into the bush; here he threaded his way through the pebbly bed of a torrent, there perched for an instant upon a stony ledge, he fearlessly prepared to foot the slippery descent beyond. Such a country could not but be puzzling to dogs; though ours were wary old greyhounds that had hunted by sight for years, they fell far behind, and to all prospect the gazelle was lost.

Had his bird been

"She has eaten too much -a blight upon her mother!" cried a furious voice by my side. The Ameer was right. sharper set, the chase would have lost half its difficulty.

The Shahbaz, who at first had flown gallantly at the quarry, soon began to check, and as we were riding far behind over the difficult ground, appeared inclined to abandon her game. But when, escaping from the punchbowl of rock, we reached a long level plain of silt, the aspect of affairs improved.

At a distance, which was palpably diminishing, we saw the goshawk attacking her game. Now she swooped upon its back, deeply scoring the delicate yellow coat as she passed by. Theu she descended upon the animal's head, deafening it with her clashing pinions, and blinding it with her talons. This manoeuvre, at first seldom practised out of respect for the dagger-like horns, whose sharp, black tips never failed to touch the pursuer's balai, or pendent feathers, was soon preferred to the other. As the victim, losing strength and breath by excess of fear, could no longer use its weapons with the same dexterity, the boldness of the Shahbaz increased. She seemed to perch upon its brow; once or twice it fell, and when it arose, its staggering, uncertain gait gave evidence of extreme distress.

Ibrahim Khan disposed his force skilfully. Then the dogs, who had become ferocious as Reserving the falconer and a Kuttewala with wolves, gained sensibly upon their victim. The two fierce, gaunt Kelat greyhounds, he stationed sound of their approach but added to its terror his men in a circle concealed from the sharp eyes what it took from its speed. Even before they of the antelopes, leaving a gap to windward of had fastened their fangs upon its quarters, the them to prevent the scent reaching their nos- unhappy gazelle was stretched panting and trils, and to serve as a trap for them to fall into.struggling, with the Shahbaz straining every Presently the horsemen, emerging from behind nerve to pin its head to the ground.* the rocks and hill tops, began to advance slowly towards the quarry, and in a moment the startled animals, sighting the forms of many enemies, sprang high up, and bounded towards the only way of escape.

As the doe passed us at headlong speed, the Ameer turned round so as to conceal her from the view of the goshawk. A few moments afterwards I gave the signal; he bent forward over his mare's neck, and, directing the Shahbaz towards the buck as he flew by, threw up the bird from his wrist with a shout.

The two greyhounds, free from the leash, dashed forward at that moment. All was hurry and excitement. Horsemen and footmen crowded

The death of the gazelle is now considered the highest triumph of eastern falconry :

Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur the remainder of that day was almost as lively a companion as a subaltern newly returned from "seeing service." He slew his antelope some twenty successive

*Mr. Barker thinks that Mr. Burton's Shahin

must have been a lanner, or a peregrine. Goshawks cannot, he says, take gazelles, which never start at a lesser distance than 300 yards, and the goshawk cannot fly fast enough, or far enough, to overtake them. In the Levant, the Barbary per egrine is called Shahin, or Sheheen.

deaths, praised to the skies everything that was | noise and turmoil, wheeling over the hawk's his especially; more especially his Bashahs, head, and occasionally pouncing upon her unhis falconer, his dogs, his dogkeeper; most es-guibus et rostris, with all the ferocity of hungry pecially as her due, his goshawking. As regards peregrines. We tremble for Khairu. Knowing the latter, a little romance was allowed to her danger, we hurry on, as fast as our legs can mingle its alloy with the pure vein of veritable carry us, shouting, shooting pellets, and anathhistory. Every hough we saw on our way ematizing the crows. We arrive, but hardly in home reminded him of some doubtful exploit time. As we plunge through the last bushes. performed by the same Shahbaz. At dinner, which separate us from the hawk, twenty cawers the gazelle steaks brought her mention promi-rise flurriedly from the ground; the Bazdar nently forward, and the music, wine, and joviality of the evening elevating him, also tended in no small degree to elevate her and her qualities. At last it was proposed to try her upon one of the wild goats that roam over the deserts separating Cutch from Scinde.

"Her success," said the Ameer, "is certain."

"Certain," repeated Kakoo Mall.

"Certain," nodded Hari Chand, whispering; "the gazelle of this year, next year will be a Gorkhar!"'

Whether the sneer has, or has not been justified, I know not. Perhaps it may so happen that in some day to come the Ameer Ibrahim, seduced by the gobe mouche auditory of a wonderloving British traveller, may point to the bird in question with a —

"You see that Shabaz? Well, Wallah! By the beard of the Prophet I swear to you, five years ago she felled a wild ass. You may believe me; although a Beloch, I do not tell a lie. Billah! A man-with-a-hat' was with me when it happened. Ask Burton Sahib, if it did

not."

Then will Kakoo Mall, if he be living, ejaculate" certainly," and Hari Chand, if he be present, exclaim" certainly ;" and, in a word, every man and boy that has ears to hear and eyes to see, will reëcho "certainly," and swear himself an eye-witness of the event, to the extreme confusion of Fact and Fiction.

We doubt much, however, if the reader will peruse this account of the death of the antelope without a pang. Mr. Burton says, "There is an eternal sameness in the operation of shooting, which must make it one would suppose very uninteresting to any but those endowed with an undue development of destructiveness." And Colonel Bonham, of the 10th Hussars, we are told by Mr. Knox, has laid aside the gun and the rifle for the enjoyment of the noble craft;" but the gun has at last the advantage of putting a bird, generally speaking, out of misery at once. Who can read the following conclusion of a combat between a Khairu, a hobby-hawk, and a crow, without feeling for the victims of the sport?

The battle is not finished. Corvus, in spite of his fall, his terror, a rent in the region of the back, and several desperate pecks, still fights gallantly. This is the time for the falsoner to assist his bird. From the neighboring mimosas, roused by the cries of their wounded comrade, pours forth a "rabble rout" of crows, with

hurries to his Laghar. The quarry lies stone dead, but poor Khairu, when taken up and inspected by thirty pair of eyes, is found to have lost her sight, and to be otherwise so grievously mauled, pecked, and clawed, that the most sanguine prepare themselves for her present decease.

Alas, poor Khairu !

It is undoubtedly very picturesque to read of knights riding out with hawk on fist, and knight's lady on fiery jenet, with merlin clasping her embroidered glove, the look of the thing, the pomp of its apparatus, and the antique costume impart a kind of blackletter interest to the good old sport; there was excitement, also, in witnessing the combined working of horses, hawks, and hounds, but we doubt if of the kind well suited to ladye fair." The effect upon the temper of the Ameers of Scinde appears to have been anything but agreeable. A sparrow-hawk had been thrown at a pigeon.

66

Unfortunately, however, for the hawk and my friend's temper, she had not been seen "shar set" that morning. This at once became appar ent from her manoeuvres. Instead of grappling with the quarry, she, "checked first at one bird, then at the other, amused herself with following them on the wing; and, lastly, when tired of the unprofitable exercise, she "rake off," and, retiring to one of the Peepul branches, took up a position there with sucb. firmness of purpose that all the falconer's "Ao Bachehs" and violent swingings of the lure were unavailing to dislodge her.

The Ameer's brow clouded; certain angry threatened an approaching stor m. flashes escaped his eyes, and low growlings For a Beloch stole furtive glances at the 'olunderer, the lean to make such a goose of hiraself! Every one nephew; and even he, despite his habitual surliness of demeanor, could not help showing in looks and manner that conscience was stirring up uncomfortable sensations within him.

"Give me the bow," shouted the Ameer in his fury, "and let me do for that brother-inlaw of a bit of carrion at once."

The Bazdar wishing, but not daring to depre cate such an atrocious act of sacrilege as the shooting of a hawk, slowly handed a polished horn kaman to his master, and a tako or blunt arrow shod with a bit of horn. The Scindians are particularly expert at the use of this weapon; they throw the missile transversely so as to strike with the side, and when a large covey is the mark aimed at, they sometimes bring down

THE LEWIS

From Bentley's Miscellany.
WHAT IS IT?

better escape duns, and the unprofitable tumult of the Forum? It was delightful to think of such a recondite solitude, especially I WONDER how many London people are to one like myself, whose wickedest and most familiar with this name, "The Lewis." How determined spirits of hard reading had been many will ask, "What is it? Is it Lewis the often interrupted by the fancied echoes of a Great? Is it Lewis Napoleon? Is it a fish, grouse's wings, as he started up crowing a man, or a place?" A few who remember defiance from the most learned pages of their geography-a canny Scot or so from the "Hearne's Contingent Remainders," and who West Highlands; or those who are "well- had often "worked" a salmon over the most up" in their Boswell, and recollect Johnson's lively chapters of "Sugden on Power." " "I'll Tour in the Hebrides, may just conclude, gang, my chief, I 'm ready," was the word; that I mean the island of that name, far up and two days after beheld me steaming away amid the stormy seas of the North Atlantic. down the muddy canal from Glasgow to But with great respect for the Fellows of the Greenock, on board the little steamer "Islay." Geographical Society, some even of whom The morning was fine and bright, but with have probably bestowed too much attention the peculiar atmospherical dispensation that on the remoter provinces of Japan, or on that prevails in Scotland, the moment we shot out interesting tract" between the Himalayas on the full bosom of the river, and got a and the Arctic Seas, to be acquainted with glimpse of the glorious scenery on its banks, our Caledonian dependency, I believe most a thick horror" fell upon us, and land, people would have stared, as much as I did myself, when, at the beginning of last long vacation, I was asked by a kindly erratic and peppery Highlander, to accompany him to his native place" in the Lews."

"I would be delighted, indeed, if I knew where it was," was my (I hope) polite reply. "What, not know where the Lews is! That comes of a Southern education. It's sometimes called The Lews,' or the Island of Lewis, and surely you must have heard of it."

sea, and sky were wrapped in a mantle of pea-soup, with a lining of fleecy clouds, anything but water-proof. It was pleasant to know that "Dumbarton was over "there," and the Kyres of Bute were "close here," as it exercised the imagination, and encouraged fancy to fly under difficulties, but all we could see with the physical eye was a wall of fog around us, and now and then the obscure hull of a fishing-boat or merchantman, or a drab-colored sea-gull wallowing about in the air, half in doubt whether it was sky or water; the big burly buoys tied by the tail, and using desperate efforts to set themselves at liberty, and make a night of it.

I had a vague notion of proving my topographical acquirements by a neat and succinct description of the ancient Euboea, or a particular account of Samos, or Melita, but, Why is it that the passengers under such on reflection, thought it better to confess circumstances always stay upon deck as long ignorance, and to content myself with mut-as they can? Why do they stare moodily into tering a modest hypothesis, that it was "some- the sky, where they know they can see where about the Orkneys." Then did I hear nothing? The wettest, windiest, dismalest my friend launch out with all the eloquence day that ever came out of heaven, you will of enthusiasm on the charms of this new be certain to behold on the deck of any "Isle of the Blessed." He told me of its steamer, ocean or river, a set of dripping desert wastes of moor and mountain-of its lunatics in pea-coats and waterproofs, trying streams "barbecued" with salmon, and all to look hardy and nautical, when they might varieties of trout-of its rugged shores be dry and comfortable "below stairs" in the lashed by ceaseless billows, the noise of cabin. The "Islay" was no exception to which would have set old Homer on some the truth of the remark, for her quarters prenew word to convey it-him who threw sented the customary array of well-ducked away that splendid "poluphloisboio" on the passengers, looming very hazy, large and gentle murmurings of the Egean-of the moody in the vapor uncertainty of regular postal communication There were two students from Edinburgh -of the absence of "The Times" and poli-" Free Church," and of a serious turn of tios-of mountain-mutton, oat cakes, barley-mind, who were rendered prematurely unbannocks, pure whiskey, grouse-pies, whales, happy at the awful prospects that await the seals, curlews, duck, deer, fere naturæ, in man and beast--in fact, he vividly sketched a state of deliciously civilized barbarity and unbounded hospitality. What more tempting picture could he draw to a briefless barrister, whom no county court attorney had smiled upon in his hermitage, up three pair of stairs in Pump Court-where could one

great mass of humanity in the other world, on account of their not belonging to that small but select Christian community; a number of "ministers" hastening from some great Convention of their body at the capitol. a laird with a tendency to a short pipe and a long black bottle, and a very drunken "docthor," who was apologizing to every one for

"A whale! -a whale! And a monster too!" But he had no mind to be made into train-oil, and, with a sullen angry plunge, down he dived again right across our bows, giving a graceful wave of his tremendous tail in the air by way of a parting salute, and as an indication of his general sentiments on the subject of steamboats and the mercantile marine. We heard the fellow puffing and blowing, and blasting, like an alderman running after the last 'bus to the City, for some time, and a strong impression was left on my mind as to the undesirableness of being a herring, or, indeed, anything swaller than a whale in these seas, if one were compelled to be a subject of King Proteus.

insulting them, and inviting them soon after-captains, maybe a major, certainly some more wards" to have it out on deck "- a very ministers, and more herring-barrels, and ferocious sporting major, with gun-cases and having hove-to for "the lady in the boat," fishing-rods enough for all Scotland, and a who is always late, and renders the very exfew merchants "of the isles. The Mull of istence of marine commanders wretched, Cantire soon exhibited its magical effects in rushed out on the sea into the fog again. reducing all on board to a common state of Skye and Mull, and many places of note, suffering and indifference to life, and the nau- were thus visited, but their beauties were all tical characters, who spoke learnedly of lost on us, while we were twice very nearly "tideways and nasty short chopping seas," lost on their disjecta membra, which ran out were soon left alone in their glory above, like the fangs of some hungry beast to seize while even the ministers were driven from upon us. Önce, as we slowly backed away their "wee crack" and toddy by the only from one of these long black teeth, warned demon (I venture to hope) they could not face of the danger by the gurgling splash of the that evil son of Neptune who as yet laughs tideway over it, a huge mass of brown roundat our science and our ruling of the waves ness heaved itself above the water for an in"sea-sickness." The very expressive name stant with a lazy roll, and up with a mighty of this marine county may teach one what breath spirted a blast of air and water from he has to expect, and though it is suggestive the end of it, full two fathoms high! of a deuced good pun or two, my recollections of it forbid the attempt, lest I should be punished when next I get into the power of the presiding Triton. Night passed in wailings for the steward, who, when his victims became unable to shout lustily, wisely retired to bed, and, in despairing soliloquies, most of them evidently composed under the influence of a monomaniacal disregard for the first law of nature. Next day was wet, foggy, and blowy, instead of being merely foggy and wet. Now and then we saw black stumpy rocks, against which the slow surge rose and broke in sheets of foam, "the lather of Neptune's beard," or the clouds broke, too, for a little, and, lifting up, disclosed on the right hand, rising close to us from the sea, the sides of massive mountains, heaped up like giant waves, adown the heather-clad steep of which tumbled numberless impromptu cataracts, filling up the watercourses with tumultuous streams, running riot among stones, rocks, and boulders, till they found rest in the bosom of the ocean; but ere the eye had rested on it for a moment, the watery veil swept over it again. The strong-winged gannet skimmed past us, or dashed down like a bolt of lead into the sea just by the ship, and presently sprang up with a herring, mackerel, or pollock in his bill; little fleets of divers, guillemots, or puffins, lay to, or bolted under water as we splashed by, and occasionally we came near a ledge of sharp rocks, on which a whole army of hungry black cormorants sat moodily in the rain, like a lot of apothecaries without business. At intervals of three or four hours we rushed into an island harbor, got a glimpse of some whitewashed houses on the shore-saw a face of a few natives - the women always washing and beetling" clothes, and the men looking as if they would be much the better for undergoing the same process; disembarked a couple of captains and ministers, and a load of herring-barrels — took in more

Seals now and then shoved up their knowing heads, to take a glimpse of us, and with one glance of that lovely, mild eye, saw all they wanted, and returned to the pursuit of salmon as ardently as Mr. Scrope himself; but, notwithstanding such interesting visits from the mammalia of these waters, I was not sorry when, on the third day of the fog, we felt our way into Stornoway, the capital of the Northern Hebrides.

I had become quite tired of the smell of whiskey-toddy, and the talk of the ministers and the sporting major-"Killed him, sir! Dead! Egad! At seven-ty-three yards! The best shot!" &c.- while the ministers were continually spinning yarns of a serious character, or engaged in vivid descriptions of the "respectable characters" in their par ishes, which seemed always, somehow or other, to be connected with the possession of a certain amount of pecuniary resources.

It must be admitted that Stornoway, notwithstanding the notion of the natives that in regal splendor it is superior to the great metropolis itself, is not possessed of mueh natural beauty or artificial attractions. There is an absurd-looking castle, bran-new, with the usual allowance of cruet-frame turrets, donjons, and embrasured parapets (placed at