Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.Bruce, James
History
Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.
Bruce, James
Natural history -- Egypt; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River; Plants -- Egypt; Plants -- Ethiopia; Scientific expeditions -- Egypt
I suppose him to be not only the largest of the eagle kind, but surely
one of the largest birds that flies. From wing to wing he was 8 feet 4
inches. From the tip of his tail to the point of his beak when dead, 4
feet 7 inches. He weighed 22 pounds, was very full of flesh. He seemed
remarkably short in the legs, being only four inches from the joining
of the foot to where the leg joins the thigh, and from the joint of the
thigh to the joining of his body 6 inches. The thickness of his thigh
was little less than 4 inches; it was extremely muscular, and covered
with flesh. His middle claw was about 2 inches and a half long, not
very sharp at the point, but extremely strong. From the root of the
bill, to the point, was 3 inches and a quarter, and one inch and three
quarters in breadth at the root. A forked brush of strong hair, divided
at the point into two, proceeded from the cavity of his lower jaw at
the beginning of his throat. He had the smallest eye I ever remember to
have seen in a large bird, the aperture being scarcely half an inch.
The crown of his head was bare or bald, so was the front where the bill
and scull joined.
This noble bird was not an object of any chace or pursuit, nor stood
in need of any stratagem to bring him within our reach. Upon the
highest top of the mountain Lamalmon, while my servants were refreshing
themselves from that toilsome rugged ascent, and enjoying the pleasure
of a most delightful climate, eating their dinner in the outer air with
several large dishes of boiled goats flesh before them, this enemy,
as he turned out to be to them, appeared suddenly; he did not stoop
rapidly from a height, but came flying slowly along the ground, and
sat down close to the meat within the ring the men had made round it.
A great shout, or rather cry of distress, called me to the place. I
saw the eagle stand for a minute as if to recollect himself, while the
servants ran for their lances and shields. I walked up as nearly to
him as I had time to do. His attention was fully fixed upon the flesh.
I saw him put his foot into the pan where was a large piece in water
prepared for boiling, but finding the smart which he had not expected,
he withdrew it, and forsook the piece which he held.
There were two large pieces, a leg and a shoulder, lying upon a wooden
platter, into these he trussed both his claws, and carried them off,
but I thought he looked wistfully at the large piece which remained in
the warm water. Away he went slowly along the ground as he had come.
The face of the cliff over which criminals are thrown took him from our
sight. The Mahometans that drove the asses, who had, as we have already
observed in the course of the journey, suffered from the hyæna, were
much alarmed, and assured me of his return. My servants, on the other
hand, very unwillingly expected him, and thought he had already more
than his share.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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