At Length, After Much
Tugging And Counter-Tugging, He Began To Show; Eagerly I Gazed
Into The Water To Examine
My new acquaintance, when I made out
something below, in shape between a coach-wheel and a
sponging-bath; in
A few moments more I brought to the surface an
enormous turtle, well hooked. I felt like the old lady who won an
elephant in a lottery: that I had him was certain, but what was
I to do with my prize? It was at the least a hundred pounds'
weight, and the bank was steep and covered with bushes; thus it
was impossible to land the monster, that now tugged and dived
with the determination of the grindstone that his first pull had
suggested. Once I attempted the gaff but the trusty weapon that
had landed many a fish in Scotland broke in the hard shell of the
turtle, and I was helpless. My Arab now came to my assistance,
and at once terminated the struggle. Seizing the line with both
hands, utterly regardless of all remonstrance (which, being in
English, he did not understand), he quickly hauled our turtle to
the surface, and held it, struggling and gnashing its jaws, close
to the steep bank. In a few moments the line slackened, and the
turtle disappeared. The fight was over! The sharp horny jaws had
bitten through treble-twisted brass wire as clean as though cut
by shears. My visions of turtle soup had faded.
The heavy fish were not in the humour to take; I therefore shot
one with a rifle as it came to the surface to blow, and, the
water in this spot being shallow, we brought it to shore; it was
a species of carp, between thirty and forty pounds; the scales
were rather larger than a crown piece, and so hard that they
would have been difficult to pierce with a harpoon. It proved to
be useless for the table, being of an oily nature that was only
acceptable to the Arabs.
In the evening I went out stalking in the desert, and returned
with five fine buck gazelles. These beautiful creatures so
exactly resemble the colour of the sandy deserts which they
inhabit, that they are most difficult to distinguish, and their
extreme shyness renders stalking upon foot very uncertain. I
accordingly employed an Arab to lead a camel, under cover of
which I could generally manage to approach within a hundred
yards. A buck gazelle weighs from sixty to seventy pounds, and is
the perfection of muscular development. No person who has seen
the gazelles in confinement in a temperate climate can form an
idea of the beauty of the animal in its native desert. Born in
the scorching sun, nursed on the burning sand of the treeless and
shadowless wilderness, the gazelle is among the antelope tribe as
the Arab horse is among its brethren, the high-bred and
superlative beauty of the race. The skin is as sleek as satin, of
a colour difficult to describe, as it varies between the lightest
mauve and yellowish brown; the belly is snow-white; the legs,
from the knee downwards, are also white, and are as fine as
though carved from ivory; the hoof is beautifully shaped, and
tapers to a sharp point; the head of the buck is ornamented by
gracefully-curved annulated horns, perfectly black, and generally
from nine to twelve inches long in the bend; the eye is the
well-known perfection--the full, large, soft, and jet-black eye
of the gazelle.
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