and
panthers and monkeys abound in the neighboring spurs of the Zouaouas.
While the Roumi are examining his orchards of oranges and pomegranates
the agha's courtyard fills with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary
horses, armed with inlaid guns. These are all entertained for the
night, together with the usual throng of parasites, who choke his
doors like the clients of the rich Roman in Horace.

At sunrise the party is mounted. The mare of the agha, a graceful
creature whose veins form an embroidery over her coat of black satin,
is caparisoned with a slender crimson bridle, and a saddle smaller
than the Arab saddles and furnished with lighter stirrups. The
Christian guests are furnished with veritable arquebuses of the Middle
Ages; that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the stock of which, flattened
and surmounted with a hammer of flints, is ignited by a wheel-shaped
lock, easier to be managed by a Burgundian under Charles the Bold than
by an unpretending modern Roumi.

The usual features of an Algerian hunt succeed. A phantom-like silence
pervades the column of galloping horsemen up to the moment when the
boar is beaten up. Then, with a formidable clamor of "_Haou! haou!_"
from his pursuers, the tusked monster bursts through the tamarinds and
dwarf palms: after a long chase he suddenly stops, and then his form
instantly disappears under the gigantic African hounds who leap upon
him and hang at his ears. A huntsman dismounts and stabs his shoulder
with the yataghan. After a rest the chase is resumed, but this time
under the form of a hawking-party.

Only the djouads and marabouts--that is to say, the religious or
secular nobles--have the privilege of hunting with the falcon.
The patrician bird, taken by the agha from the shoulder of his
hawk-bearer, is about as large as a pigeon, the head small, beak short
and strong, the claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. The bird
rides upon his master's leather glove until a hare is started: then,
unhooded and released, his first proceeding is to dart into the zenith
as if commissioned to make a hole in the sky. No fear, however, that
the poor panting quarry is lost for an instant from the vision of that
infallible eye, which follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and
fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an aerolite, and, as the deed is
explained to us, doubles up his yellow hand into a fist, and deals the
animal a sharp blow on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen approach