Bible Animals. J. G. Wood

imagery is employed by the prophet Isaiah, xiii. 13, 14:—

      "Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger. And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land."

      Having now learned that the Tsebi was very fleet of foot and a beast of chase, we come to another series of passages, which show that it was an animal of acknowledged beauty. In that most remarkable poem, the Song of Solomon, or the "Song of Songs," as it is more rightly named, there are repeated allusions to the Tsebi. In some cases the name of the Roe is used as a sort of adjuration—"I charge thee by the roes;" and in others the lover, whether man or woman, is compared to the Roe. There is one consecutive series of passages in which the word is repeatedly used. See Cant. ii. 7–9: "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart." And in the last verse of the poem the same image is repeated—"Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices."

      Allusion is made to the beauty of the Roe, or Gazelle, in a well-known name, Tabitha, which is, in fact, a slight corruption of the Hebrew Tsebiyah, and is translated into Greek as Dorcas, or Gazelle. "Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas (i.e. the Gazelle). This woman was full of good works and alms deeds which she did."

      As to the flesh of the Gazelle, or Roe, it is mentioned in Deut. xii. 15, xiv. 5, as one of the animals that affords lawful food; and the same permission is reiterated in xv. 22, with the proviso that the blood shall be poured out on the earth like water.

      Having now glanced at the various passages of Scripture wherein the Gazelle is mentioned, we will proceed to the animal itself, its appearance, locality, and general habits, in order to see how they agree with the Scriptural allusions to the Tsebi.

      As to its flesh, it is even now considered a great dainty, although it is not at all agreeable to European taste, being hard, dry, and without flavour. Still, as has been well remarked, tastes differ as well as localities, and an article of food which is a costly luxury in one land is utterly disdained in another, and will hardly be eaten except by one who is absolutely dying of starvation.

The Gazelle is very common in Palestine in the present day, and, in the ancient times, must have been even more plentiful. There are several varieties of it, which were once thought to be distinct species, but are now acknowledged to be mere varieties, all of which are referable to the single species Gazella Dorcas. There is, for example, the Corinna, or Corine Antelope, which is a rather boldly-spotted female; the Kevella Antelope, in which the horns are slightly flattened; the small variety called the Ariel, or Cora; the grey Kevel, which is a rather large variety; and the Long-horned Gazelle, which owes its name to a rather large development of the horns.

      THE GAZELLE, (Gazella Dorcus) OR ROE OF SCRIPTURE.

      "Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart."—Cant. ii. 8, 9.

      Whatever variety may inhabit any given spot, they all have the same habits. They are gregarious animals, associating together in herds often of considerable size, and deriving from their numbers an element of strength which would otherwise be wanting. Against mankind, numbers are of no avail; but when the agile though feeble Gazelle has to defend itself against the predatory animals of its own land, it can only defend itself by the concerted action of the whole herd. Should, for example, the wolves prowl round a herd of Gazelles, after their treacherous wont, the Gazelles instantly assume a posture of self-defence. They form themselves into a compact phalanx, all the males coming to the front, and the strongest and boldest taking on themselves the honourable duty of facing the foe. The does and the young are kept within their ranks, and so formidable is the array of sharp, menacing horns, that beasts as voracious as the wolf, and far more powerful, have been known to retire without attempting to charge.

      As a rule, however, the Gazelle does not desire to resist, and prefers its legs to its horns as a mode of insuring safety. So fleet is the animal, that it seems to fly over the ground as if propelled by volition alone, and its light, agile frame is so enduring, that a fair chase has hardly any prospect of success. Hunters, therefore, prefer a trap of some kind, if they chase the animal merely for food or for the sake of its skin, and contrive to kill considerable numbers at once. Sometimes they dig pitfalls, and drive the Gazelles into them by beating a large tract of country, and gradually narrowing the circle. Sometimes they use nets, such as have already been described, and sometimes they line the sides of a ravine with archers and spearmen, and drive the herd of Gazelles through the treacherous defile.

      These modes of slaughter are, however, condemned by the true hunter, who looks upon those who use them much in the same light as an English sportsman looks on a man who shoots foxes. The greyhound and the falcon are both employed in the legitimate capture of the Gazelle, and in some cases both are trained to work together. Hunting the Gazelle with the greyhound very much resembles coursing in our own country, and chasing it with the hawk is exactly like the system of falconry that was once so popular an English sport, and which even now shows signs of revival.

      It is, however, when the dog and the bird are trained to work together that the spectacle becomes really novel and interesting to an English spectator.

      As soon as the Gazelles are fairly in view, the hunter unhoods his hawk, and holds it up so that it may see the animals. The bird fixes its eye on one Gazelle, and by that glance the animal's doom is settled. The falcon darts after the Gazelles, followed by the dog, who keeps his eye on the hawk, and holds himself in readiness to attack the animal that his feathered ally may select. Suddenly the falcon, which has been for some few seconds hovering over the herd of Gazelles, makes a stoop upon the selected victim, fastening its talons in its forehead, and, as it tries to shake off its strange foe, flaps its wings into the Gazelle's eyes so as to blind it. Consequently, the rapid course of the antelope is arrested, so that the dog is able to come up and secure the animal while it is struggling to escape from its feathered enemy. Sometimes, though rarely, a young and inexperienced hawk swoops down with such reckless force that it misses the forehead of the Gazelle, and impales itself upon the sharp horns, just as in England the falcon is apt to be spitted on the bill of the heron.

      The most sportsmanlike mode of hunting the Gazelle is to use the falcon alone; but for this sport a bird must possess exceptional strength, swiftness, and intelligence. A very spirited account of such a chase is given by Mr. G. W. Chasseaud, in his "Druses of the Lebanon:"—

      "Whilst reposing here, our old friend with the falcon informs us that at a short distance from this spot is a khan called Nebbi Youni, from a supposition that the prophet Jonah was here landed by the whale; but the old man is very indignant when we identify the place with a fable, and declare to him that similar sights are to be seen at Gaza and Scanderoon. But his good humour is speedily recovered by reverting to the subject of the exploits and cleverness of his falcon. This reminds him that we have not much time to waste in idle talk, as the greater heats will drive the gazelles from the plains to the mountain retreats, and lose us the opportunity of enjoying the most sportsmanlike amusement in Syria. Accordingly, bestriding our animals again, we ford the river at that point where a bridge once stood.