Immediately outside the town were waiting, saddled but not bridled,
some score of the extraordinary riding-birds Eveena had described. The
seat of the rider is on the back, between the wings; but the saddle
consists only of a sort of girth immediately in front, to which a pair
of stirrups, resembling that of a lady's side-saddle, were attached.
The creature that was to carry my unusual weight was the most powerful
of all, but I felt some doubt whether even his strength might not
break down. One of the hunters had charge of a carriage on which was
fixed a cage containing two dozen birds of a dark greenish grey, about
the size of a crow, and with the slender form, piercing eyes, and
powerful beak of the falcon. They were not intended, however, to
strike the prey, but simply to do the part of dogs in tracing out the
game, and driving it from the woods into the open ground. Our birds,
rising at once into the air, carried us some fifty feet above the tops
of the trees. Here the chief huntsman took the guidance of the party,
keeping in front of the line in which we were ranged, and watching
through a pair of what might be called spectacles, save that a very
short tube with double lenses was substituted for the single glass,
the movement of the hawks, which had been released in the wood below
us.
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