I had heard a great deal about Egyptian quail from the time when, as a boy in Sunday School, I doubtingly read the story of how the Israelites slaughtered the birds during their wanderings in the wilderness. My early life had been spent among the foothills of the Alleghenies, where, as the proud owner of a double barrel, I had a well-defined impression that anyone who attempted to knock over November quail with nothing better than a pocketful of stones and a baseball bat—the ammunition supposedly used by Israelites—would bring home an exceedingly light bag at sunset. Long experience had taught me that even a good dog and a first-class breechloader did not always ensure a successful hunt, even when you knew your ground.
I went down into Egypt during the Turkish-Russian war for the purpose of having a hand in the fight, but as that chance was rather remote, I compromised during my six years’ sojourn in Alexandria and Cairo, pursuing whatever turned up. The prevailing idea that one might just as well be in the tombs as on the banks of the “golden, sluggish Nile” is a fallacy, for Egypt is a beautiful country, a land of perpetual summer and a paradise for sportsmen. Mile after mile of wheat, bersim, cotton, and sugarcane are cut by canals of various sizes, which are used not only for irrigation but as thoroughfares. The larger of these watercourses can be traced, as far as the eye can reach, by lines of acacia, wild fig, and date palm trees, while the smaller are used for the purpose of watering the wonderfully productive soil and dividing it into fields.
The numerous villages are built on artificial mounds, and near them you will invariably find groves of date palms. These break the monotony of the landscape and, at a distance, add to its beauty. The cotton and the sugarcane make splendid cover for the wolves, jackals, hyenas, and foxes, while the grain fields, the numerous swamps, and the borders of the canals form the loveliest imaginable feeding grounds for quail, snipe, plover, duck, and numerous other birds and wildfowl.
The peasantry (fellaheen) have been trampled underfoot from time immemorial by all nations until their manhood exists only in vague tradition. They are not permitted to keep firearms; in fact, if they were possessed of the latest improved breechloaders, their struggle for existence would prevent their hunting.
The wealthy class of Egyptians are entirely too lazy for the exertion required by field sports. The same is true for the 150,000 foreign residents in the country, who cannot see any amusement in tramping around under a sun that beats down from a cloudless sky with a heat that sends the mercury to the top of the thermometer, making your gun barrels feel as though they were red hot.
The genuine sportsmen are to be found principally in the English colony, and Spencer Carr, the British consular agent at Birket-el-Sab, is at the head. He is thoroughly conversant with the habits and haunts of all fish and game in Lower Egypt, always ready for a day’s shooting, tireless in the field, and the best shot I have ever met. The hunters are so few and the game so plentiful that millions of quail never hear the report of a gun.
The Bedoueen is another breed of Egyptian far different from the fellaheen. They live in the desert near cultivated land where they hunt, though they cannot do much wingshooting with their long, gas-pipe-barreled flintlocks. Instead, they resort to trapping and are masters of the art.
Thousands upon thousands of the quail they catch are annually shipped from Alexandria to various parts of Europe. I have now forgotten the method, but I have frequently been an interested spectator of their simple manner of catching reed birds. They take a large extent of swampland, say half a mile in circumference, and plant a bush, already plastered with birdlime every here and there, then beat up the weeds, grass, and reeds. Every bird alighting upon those bushes would remain until he went into the Arab’s capacious game bag. Their catch frequently amounted to thousands in a day, for which they found a ready market with the hated nousarani (foreigner or Christian) at Scandareah (Alexandria).
The Egyptian quail is migratory, but just where he comes from and just where he goes no one seems to know. The quail come from somewhere to the north, and many are so exhausted after their long flight that they can be picked up along the coast by the hundreds. They spread over the whole country like a swarm of locusts and gradually move south, until, in the course of a month from the time of their arrival, you might just as well look for elephants as quail in the neighborhood of the coast.
In fact, about the only steady shooting that anyone can have, at least in the immediate vicinity of Alexandria, is the ring dove, and they do make things exceedingly lively for the shooter. The pot hunters of the city haunt the palm groves of Ramleh, and few of the doves find a place to set their feet without having a charge of shot to move them along or bring them down.
There are several shooting clubs in Alexandria, and pigeon matches are common. The birds are “blue rocks,” and, when fully fledged, fly with such rapidity that about one half of the birds sprung from the traps make a beeline for home, unscathed by the indifferent marksmen. I merely mention it to show that everyone has ample opportunity for practice and no reason for not “keeping his hand in.”
The sportsmen, or even would-be sportsmen, do not differ from their brethren all over the world. They are courteous above all others and liberal to a fault. A stranger is treated with scriptural politeness, and should his tastes happen to run in the same channels as their own, he is at once taken in, and guns and birds ad lib are at his service.
On one occasion I was invited on a quail hunt by David Ross, a long-time resident of Egypt, at a place called Abu Hamous, a station on the Cairo Railway about 25 miles south of Alexandria. Our party included a Maltese, whose sole possessions consisted of little more than a setter dog and a gun. This particular individual lived by hunting and by acting as guide for parties who wished a day’s outing. He knew the country like the proverbial book, and never fired a shot out of his old muzzleloader unless the bird was on the ground or flying directly from him.
When we alighted from the bobtail cars it was a typical Egyptian morning, and the sun was apparently just rising from the golden grain fields which formed the horizon. The courteous Coptic station agent had four donkeys and donkey boys in waiting, and it was not long before we had one of the solemn-looking animals loaded with sufficient provisions, wet and dry, to have lasted our party for a trip across the Sahara. We then sent our transports to a point several miles distant, as designated by the Maltese.
The donkey is the street car of Egypt, and appears to thrive on hard knocks and heavy loads. The largest and best are sold to the rich, and $400 is not an unusual price to be paid for a first-class homar (donkey). The next in size go to the markets in the cities and towns, leaving nothing but the “runts” in the country. To me, they are the most comical-looking creatures imaginable, especially when mounted by a long-legged English tourist with his white helmet, cotton umbrella, and his big feet sticking out in front to keep them from dragging on the ground.
In the country, the saddle consists of a ragged, flat pad, without stirrups, and the bridle a single piece of rope. When you wish to start your donkey, your boy swears—at you, if he thinks you don’t understand Arabic—and prods Bucephalus in the rear with a sharp stick. When you wish to stop, you simply step off.
The Egyptian quail—I call it that for lack of a better name—is similar in size and color (minus the yellow breast) to our common meadowlark, but resembles our quail in form. It flies low, slow, and generally straightaway, and is as easy to hit by an ordinary shot as is a barn door.
We had not gone a hundred yards before we reached a field of bersim, a sort of clover, and I had not taken ten steps before up got a quail flying straight to the right. I was taken completely by surprise. My special and particular dislike is a right quartering shot, but I winged him, and down he came in the thick grass.
I shouted “Mark!” But it was of no use. We could not find him, as the dew put the dog completely at fault. In fact, I had not been in the field ten minutes ere I was soaking wet almost to the waist. It rarely rains in that country, but the dew is so heavy that one sitting outside for an hour in the evening, at certain seasons, will be wet through and through.
We picked up several birds in the bersim patch, and then struck the grain fields. The Arabs were harvesting their wheat at this time, which they do by pulling it up by the roots, and men, women, and children engage in the work. It is said their customs have not changed for thousands of years, and I believe it. Still, I wondered when I reached the first half-harvested wheat field what Ruth had ever found to glean, for the portion that the harvesters had gone over was as bare as a turnpike road and far cleaner than a Coney Island beach.
There are not any fences in the country, the land being divided as I said before by ditches, many of which when not used for irrigation are dry.
We started in a wheat field about half-harvested near a very large Arab village, with the Maltese on my left and Ross on my right. Not a bird got up in front of either Ross or I, while the Maltese kicked them up like grasshoppers.
At a village about five miles back from the railway we found a gorgeously dressed, patriarchal old sheik, comfortably seated under the palm trees. He greeted us courteously and, at our request for a drink of water, cried out to one of the half-naked urchins who had been watching us with as much curiosity as American lads would a circus procession.
“Inta, ye walled, hat moya gewam” (“Boy, run quickly and bring some water”), he shouted. The designated youngster started off, and in a few moments returned with a goolah (earthen bottle) of clear, cool water. Meanwhile, the old man anxiously questioned us concerning the progress of the rebellion and pressed us to remain until he could have some food prepared, but we were compelled to decline his kind offers. He then sent a half-dozen young men with us to show where the quail were most abundant and beat them up for us.
Among the quail’s greatest enemies are the hawks of every description. You can see numbers of them at any hour in the day, and, as they have never been shot at, they are remarkably tame. It was my delight when one came within range to let him have an ounce and a quarter of No. 8 shot, and I must have knocked down at least 20.
There was one species that pleased me particularly well. Sometimes there would be a dozen of them together hovering over a grain field with their wings outspread and apparently immovable. Suddenly one would dart down like a shot and in a few moments rise heavily with a quail in his talons. Did it ever strike you that there is a natural antipathy existing between hunters and hawks? A sportsman will generally spend as much time in stalking one of those birds as he would a deer, and feels far more satisfaction when he has brought it down than if it were a brace of partridges.
I had some queer experience that day with the “nimphs” (ichneumon). They are about two feet in length, sloping from the nose to their hindquarters, with short legs, gray fur, and weighing, when full grown, about 25 pounds. When captured young they are readily domesticated, and I afterward saw many in houses and on shipboard, where they were considered famous rat-catchers.
I was startled by the cry “Shoof!” (“Look out!”) from the Maltese, and I could trace by the manner in which the grain was agitated that something was shaping its course directly toward me. I thought that it was an immense snake and began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable, as I have a holy horror against snakes. When it was within about eight feet of me and I could indistinctly make it out, I took a snap shot, which stopped the waving of the wheat. We then held a post-mortem examination and discovered what the Maltese disdainfully designated as “nimphs,” and then added, as he turned away, “Mush tieb.” (“No good.”)
I caught another in a ditch, and although my surprise was great as he jumped up almost from under my feet, I have no doubt his was greater as he climbed up the side to seek cover in the adjoining cotton field.
There are no roads through the country, and all the grain, cotton, and merchandise is carried on the backs of camels and donkeys on the paths along the banks of the watercourses. This fact necessitated our donkeys and donkey boys to make long detours, and about noon, when we met them in a palm grove, we were all ravenously hungry and dry enough to burn. Bass’s ale is good enough when cold, but I can yet remember at our banquet it was so warm that you could have almost boiled eggs in it; however, we had a good lunch, a long smoke, and an hour’s rest before we again took the field.
Soon after I had a beautiful right-and-left double, dropping the latter bird in an onion patch at fully 50 yards.
When we reached the edge of the cultivated land, we had an adventure which almost resulted in bloodshed. A large number of Bedouen gave us anything but a pleasant greeting and, with their scowling faces, dirty burnous, and long naboots, looked anything but inviting. They imagined that we were English, and an Egyptian hates an Englishman far more than he hates the efreet (devil), while, on the other hand, they are particularly friendly toward Americans.
This can readily be understood by anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the political situation, as they were fully aware that the English wished to take their country, and also knew that the Americans had been fighting in their army. There had probably been 40 American officers, all told, in the Egyptian service, but at the time of which I write they had dwindled down to 11, and I think that fully one half of them are since dead. Colonel Mason is the only one remaining in Egypt, and he proudly claims to be the only unrepenting rebel. But to our tale . . .
The Bedoueen ordered us to keep out of their grain and looked as though they intended to see that we obeyed their commands. I suggested to Ross the propriety of taking a walk, as the fields did not look very good for quail, anyhow, but he merely laughed and consigned the Arabs in general to a hotter clime than that of Egypt. He went ahead, the Maltese and I followed, and soon we were cracking away.
The Arabs gathered around, and I soon saw that it was their intention to drive us off by force. They began to crowd in on Ross, who had an utter contempt for the whole breed, and it was not long before he lost his temper. I anticipated trouble from the outset, and when one big fellow became particularly aggressive, Ross raised his gun, in dead earnest, to shoot. The same moment another behind him had his naboot raised over Ross’s head. I covered him and shouted “Shoof!” (“Look out!”) The Arab dropped his stick, and then Ross began to realize the situation.
We were eight miles from the railway, on the very border of the desert, with a whole tribe of howling Bedoueen around us, so he then concluded that discretion was the better part of valor and that it would be advisable to move on. But as we commenced to retreat they became more aggressive than ever, and finally blocked the way entirely, demanding pay for the grain we had destroyed.
Things began to look serious, to say the least, when from their conversation among themselves I discovered that we had been mistaken for Englishmen.
I then said to them, “Mush Inglese, andi Americano” (“I am not English, I am an American”). This acted as an oil upon the troubled waters, and the whole aspect of the crowd was changed as if by magic.
When they were fully satisfied on the subject, they insisted upon our going on with the shooting and on coming up to their tent village for something to eat. We accepted the latter invitation, and I very shortly afterward repented it. They set out dates, cheese, bread, and a goolah of camel’s milk, then insisted upon our eating and drinking. I had had many and varied repasts, but previously the line had been drawn at camel’s milk, and I must confess that I have not yearned for it since. A dinner at Delmonico’s always reminds me of that feast—it is so different.
When we came to depart, they escorted us to our donkeys, carrying our heavy game bags and, in fact, showing their friendliness in every possible manner. We had a long ride to the railway station in the cool of the evening, after what might truthfully be called an eventful day. We had bagged 125 quail, about 30 hawks, seven wild ducks, five doves, and two nimphs.
Note: This article originally appeared in the January 1891 issue of Outing Magazine and is included in the Sept./Oct. 2016 issue of Sporting Classics. The European quail the author hunted was Coturnix coturnix, a migrating species that can be found at different times in much of Europe, in addition to northern Africa and Asia. The two nimphs he bagged were Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon).
