Travels in India (Tavernier) 13.5

13.5

It is difficult to approach them by day, because if they see the sportsman they fly before him more rapidly than a partridge, and enter the jungle, where it is impossible to follow them, one’s garment being torn at every step. Hence, you are only able to capture them easily at night ; and this, in a few words, is the method. You approach the tree with a kind of banner, on which are painted life-like peacocks, on each side. On the top of the stick there are two lighted candles, the light of which alarming the peacock, causes him to stretch out his neck almost to the end of the stick, where there is a cord with a running noose, which he who holds the banner draws when he sees that the peacock has placed his neck in it. However, you must be careful not to kill a bird, or any other animal, in the countries of Rajas, where the idolaters are the masters ; it is not dangerous in the parts of India where the rulers of the country are Muhammadans, and permit sport to be free. It happened one day that a rich merchant of Persia, passing by the territory of the Raja of Dantivar, slew a peacock on the road by a shot from his gun, either out of bravado or from not knowing the customs of the country. The Banians, enraged by an act which is regarded among them as a horrible sacrilege, seized the merchant themselves, and also the money he had with him, which amounted to 300,000 rupees, and having tied him to a tree, whipped him for three days so severely that the poor man died of it.