Note {4} — Chapter XVIII

Note 4.—This is perfectly correct. In Eastern Turkestan, and among the Kirghiz to this day, eagles termed Búrgút (now well known to be the Golden Eagle) are tamed and trained to fly at wolves, foxes, deer, wild goats, etc. A Kirghiz will give a good horse for an eagle in which he recognises capacity for training. Mr. Atkinson gives vivid descriptions and illustrations of this eagle (which he calls “Bear coote”), attacking both deer and wolves. He represents the bird as striking one claw into the neck, and the other into the back of its large prey, and then tearing out the liver with its beak. In justice both to Marco Polo and to Mr. Atkinson, I have pleasure in adding a vivid account of the exploits of this bird, as witnessed by one of my kind correspondents, the Governor-General’s late envoy to Kashgar. And I trust Sir Douglas Forsyth will pardon my quoting his own letter just as it stands[1]:—“Now for a story of the Burgoot—Atkinson’s ‘Bearcoote.’ I think I told you it was the Golden Eagle and supposed to attack wolves and even bears. One day we came across a wild hog of enormous size, far bigger than any that gave sport to the Tent Club in Bengal. The Burgoot was immediately let loose, and went straight at the hog, which it kicked, and flapped with its wings, and utterly flabbergasted, whilst our Kashgaree companions attacked him with sticks and brought him to the ground. As Friar Odoric would say, I, T. D. F., have seen this with mine own eyes.”—Shaw describes the rough treatment with which the Búrgút is tamed. Baber, when in the Bajaur Hills, notices in his memoirs: “This day Búrgút took a deer.” (Timkowski, I. 414; Levchine, p. 77; Pallas, Voyages, I. 421; J. R. A. S. VII. 305; Atkinson’s Siberia, 493; and Amoor, 146–147; Shaw, p. 157; Baber, p. 249.)