SPORT AMONG THE ARABS
The Arab who has not become softened by life in European towns
thinks more of sport than of anything else. His greatest ambition
is to own a horse, and the possession of a breech-loading gun is a
dream he rarely realizes. With his old muzzle-loading blunderbuss,
however, he does wonderful shooting, and rams down the charge with
amazing rapidity.
Game of all kinds abounds in Algeria—partridge, hares, woodcock,
bustard, pigeons, quail, wild boar, gazelle, moufflon, and occasional
panthers in the mountains. I will discuss the various methods
of shooting the animals as employed by the Arabs, as, with rare
exceptions, sport in the country is organized by them. Small game
is either walked up or driven; usually driven, as the areas are
so wide and open that it is difficult to approach within range of
the birds. Hares can be walked, and they make very pretty shots as
they dart round the tufts of alfa; the bustard seems to be a bulky
target and does not appear to fly very fast, but is not too easy
to hit. Dogs are taken out, but they are badly trained, and it is
preferable to leave them at home and rely on native boys to pick
up the game.
The most interesting way of hunting the small game in the south is
mounted, with hawks. The breed is a kind of small falcon, and unlike
those trained in India and other countries, which once captured
are kept as long as they can fly, these hawks of North Africa are
caught in the autumn and are released again in the spring as soon
as the molting season begins. What is still more curious is that
the same birds are found again the following year by the falconers,
with their young, to be trained for the first time. A hawk is an
expensive luxury, and costs four or five hundred francs to buy, while
a falconer must be mounted, clothed, fed, and paid a salary. But
it is a noble sport, and perhaps one of the most picturesque in
the world.
A meeting-place is fixed, and the party rides out in twos and threes,
or, in the case of the rich, send on their horses, and motor there in
comfort. When every one is assembled a long line is made, converging
at the two extremities so as almost to make three sides of a square;
the falconers, with the birds, capped, perching on their turbans or
shoulders, ride in the center. The horsemen slowly advance. Suddenly
there is a shout—a hare has got up; the line steadies its pace,
for it is against all rules in any way to hunt the hare until the
falcon has got to work. This does not take long, however, for in a
second a bird is uncapped and is soaring rapidly up into the air,
a second bird has followed it, perhaps a third.
Up they go, flying swiftly above the hunted beast. Suddenly the
first falcon swoops down toward the earth, then up again. He has
missed, but before the hare has got over this first escape the
second falcon comes down; if he misses, the third is there; and,
with cries of delight, the Arabs ride up to see the prey held firmly
in the falcon’s talons as he pecks savagely at the head.
All this may take five minutes or half an hour. If the hare gets a
good start or if the falcon does not see it, at once there is gallop
across country, driving the hare in as straight a line as possible
by hemming him in on either flank. It is advised in this case not to
try to guide the horse, but to let it pick its way among the tufts
and holes in the mad pursuit across the rough ground. Many hawks
are often loosed, and one may see eight in the air at the same time.
The prettiest sight, I think, is to see a hawk tackling a
bustard. The bird gets up heavily, and at first flies low, apparently
slowly, but not too slowly for the hawk, whose wings twinkle high
up in the sky. After a minute or two the bustard decides to rise;
in doing so it loses distance, and the hawk, at the critical moment,
stoops and with a graceful upward movement seems just to skim over
the large bird’s back, turning on itself again like an aeroplane
looping. There is a little shower of gray feathers, the bustard
seems to stagger, and then spins down to earth, while the falcon
remains high above, marking the place where lies the body.
More often than not, the quarry gets away, and it is then a little
difficult to gather in the hawks. The falconers, with loud cries,
wave the carcass of a dead hare round their heads until the birds,
one by one, return and are capped till the next hunt.
The shooting of bigger game is contrary to all British ideas of
sport. The art of stalking is practically unknown.
The wild boar which infests the Atlas range, and especially the
mountains of the coast, is driven through the thick undergrowth
and killed with a shotgun at short range.
The gazelle of the Sahara is hunted in different ways. The most
common method is on horseback. A party of five or six will ride
out on to the plain where gazelles are known to be pasturing. As
soon as the animals are sighted the horsemen approach cautiously,
endeavoring to place themselves on the flank of the herd. The
moment the hunters are seen, up go the heads of the gazelles, and
in a second there is a wild stampede. At the same time the horses
leap forward and the pursuit begins.
If the preliminary maneuvering has been well carried out the line
of horsemen will be galloping one behind the other parallel to the
gazelles, and little by little the distance separating the hunters
from their quarry is lessened.
Suddenly as the leading horseman comes within range he drops the
reins on his horse’s neck, raises his gun and fires. His companions
follow suit and an intermittent broadside continues until the herd
breaks up into terrified groups fleeing in all directions.
The party halts, retainers who have been following hurry up and cut
the throats of the dead gazelles, as even in sport the laws of the
Prophet must be observed.
It is an exhilarating sport but it needs a little practise to hit
anything when both hunters and hunted are at full gallop. It is
moreover recommended to use a high-backed Arab saddle and also to
ride at the rear of the line, as excitement often makes the Arabs
shoot carelessly.
There are others, merely hunting for food, who go out before dawn
when the herds are all lying down, approach as near as possible, and
then blaze away as soon as it is light enough to see. Some sportsmen
hunt them with the native greyhound, but, as this entails much
leisure with often no results, the sport is dying out. I have
seen gazelles hunted from a motor-car. The vehicle goes bumping
across the desert until a herd is seen, and approaches as near
as possible. As soon as the animals get the wind they are off,
and the car is off after them. As in the case of the hunting on
horseback, the gazelles at first go much faster, but they are soon
overtaken and the car rushes along beside them while the occupants
discharge their guns into the terrified herd. It is a massacre,
but the shooting is not so easy as it sounds and the driver of
the car must have courage and judgment. Sometimes it is impossible
to get level with the gazelles. In these cases the object may be
achieved by the mere tooting of the horn! Nine times out of ten
this will cause the gazelles to stop, the car then stops too, and
the tooting continues at intervals until—marvelous to relate—
the animals begin approaching to see what the noise is. At this
moment the heathen kills just as many head as he wants.
There are few dishes more delicate than a roast haunch of gazelle,
and the cutlets melt in one’s mouth.
The moufflon—which is not really a moufflon at all, but a sort of
goat resembling very closely the animal which is known as the sharpu
in Kashmir—is very little hunted. In the first place, he lives in
very inaccessible mountains, chiefly in the Aures above Biskra and
in the Djebel Amour near Laghouat; secondly, he is getting scarce,
and thirdly, his meat not being very tender, is not sought after. If
the Arabs see one they shoot it with a shotgun regardless of sex
or age; and the European who wants to stalk must understand the
game thoroughly himself, be a good mountaineer, and merely employ
natives to guide him to the likely spots. It is one of the most
astonishing things to see how completely ignorant the Arabs are of
all questions of wind or light; their only idea seems to be to rush
up to the beasts as quickly as possible and kill in quantity.
But, if the sportsman will take trouble and get into touch with
some of the rare Arabs who enjoy this kind of shooting, he will
have some excellent sport and get quite good heads.
Panthers are very rare nowadays, and keep away in the highest
peaks where there are forests or thick undergrowth. Only when it is
very cold do they come down to lower levels and kill a few sheep.
The moment their presence is known all the neighboring villages
are up in arms, and the wretched beasts have not many days to live.
Jackals and foxes are also shot, as they do a great deal of damage
to flocks, and their skins are tanned and sold. Hyenas frequent
the plains of the Northern Sahara.
On the whole, however, the Arab who is at heart a good sportsman
considers that any form of hunting not connected with a horse is
more a means to obtain food than anything else. There are, of course,
the great chiefs who will organize regular shoots for their friends
as is done in Europe, but it is not very general.
Horse-racing is encouraged, and, though it is carried out in rather
a wild method, with little attention to handicapping, it is very
highly thought of. Every Arab knows how to ride, be he a soldier,
a merchant, or a cook, and the smallest boy will mount his steed
without fear or hesitation at the first opportunity.
What strikes one, however, is the little care the average man takes
of his horse. He very rarely grooms him, he feeds him on any sort
of fodder available, and when in camp he hobbles him in a way
which is almost cruel. He uses a heavy saddle based on a wooden
framework, and the bit, though light, is often rusty. It is nothing
for a nomad to do thirty miles a day on an animal which has never
smelled a handful of oats in its life. In spite of this, however,
the horses seem to thrive, and those who are properly cared for
answer to the treatment in an incredibly short space of time.
All along the coast, sea-fishing abounds, but it differs in no way
from the same sort of fishing all over the world. The river-fishing
inland is not worth speaking about, but it exists, and the rather
bony fish which is caught often makes a pleasant contrast to the
eternal meals of mutton and game.
This, roughly speaking, is the sport of Algeria. There are, of
course, private individuals—European farmers—who do a certain
amount of preserving, but they are in the minority, and rarely ask
others than their neighbors to share in their shoots.
Game exists everywhere, and, if the sportsman will take trouble,
he can have as good fun with gun and rifle as in any country,
but he must do it all himself.