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.)
[The hunting equipment of the Sultan consisted of about thirty falconers
on horseback who carried each a bird on his fist. These falconers were in
front of seven horsemen, who had behind a kind of tamed tiger at times
employed by His Highness for hare-hunting, notwithstanding what may be
said to the contrary by those who are inclined not to believe the fact.
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