Note {1} — Chapter XVIII

Note 1.—The Cheeta or Hunting-Leopard, still kept for the chase by native noblemen in India, is an animal very distinct from the true leopard. It is much more lanky and long-legged than the pure felines, is unable to climb trees, and has claws only partially retractile. Wood calls it a link between the feline and canine races. One thousand Cheetas were attached to Akbar’s hunting establishment; and the chief one, called Semend-Manik, was carried to the field in a palankin with a kettledrum beaten before him. Boldensel in the first half of the 14th century speaks of the Cheeta as habitually used in Cyprus; but, indeed, a hundred years before, these animals had been constantly employed by the Emperor Frederic II. in Italy, and accompanied him on all his marches. 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 Mœurs 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 Kúblái’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 Moáwiyah. 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.)