OF THE LIONS AND LEOPARDS AND WOLVES THAT THE KAAN KEEPS FOR THE CHASE.

The Emperor hath numbers of leopards[NOTE 1] trained to the chase, and hath also a great many lynxes taught in like manner to catch game, and which afford excellent sport.[NOTE 2] He hath also several great Lions, bigger than those of Babylonia, beasts whose skins are coloured in the most beautiful way, being striped all along the sides with black, red, and white.  These are trained to catch boars and wild cattle, bears, wild asses, stags, and other great or fierce beasts.  And ’tis a rare sight, I can tell you, to see those lions giving chase to such beasts as I have mentioned!  When they are to be so employed the Lions are taken out in a covered cart, and every Lion has a little doggie with him. [They are obliged to approach the game against the wind, otherwise the animals would scent the approach of the Lion and be off.][NOTE 3]

There are also a great number of eagles, all broken to catch wolves, foxes, deer, and wild goats, and they do 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.[NOTE 4]

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 Kublai’s (supra, Bk.  I. ch. 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 Moawiyah.  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; Kington’s Fred. II. I. 472, II. 156; Bochart, Hierozoica, 797; Rock’s Catalogue, passim.)