Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

On. Up and up, this time to the very top of the ridge, where the forest began, a fine open forest, and although the trees were somewhat wind-stunted on the brow itself, the road had not descended five minutes before it was winding through noble oaks, with beeches here and there, and chestnuts and sometimes an incongruous yew. And presently,where the path narrowed to thread between tall crags on either side there was a gate with huts for soldiers right and left: a small open plain beyond it.

Ibrahim rode forward and showed the Vizier’s pass. The guards opened the gate, saluting in the elegant Muslim fashion. On the little plain - ten acres or so of grass - the riders stopped to gaze down over the sea of tree-tops to the vast expanse of the Shatt el Khadna. The valley of the stream that fed it was hidden from view by the mountain range, rising and falling in irregular waves; but the lake itself was a noble sight, and its splendour was increased by the presence of birds quite close at hand and overhead, which added a great deal to the sense of height, distance and immobility on the one hand, and to that of a totally different essence on the other. The birds - vultures for the most part, with two more distant eagles and some trifling black kites - were far above, wholly free in the limitless sky; and the nearer group (all griffons) were in constant smooth motion, mounting and mounting in spirals on a current rising from the warm mountain-side.

‘Ibrahim says that these are the stakes used for impaling,’ said Jacob.

‘Certainly,’ replied Stephen. ‘And since vultures are in general very faithful to their sources of supply, I have been wondering whether any of those wheeling above us will drop down for leavings. Not the griffons, I think: they are too cautious. But there is a bearded vulture, a friend of my boyhood, and very glad I am to see him here, together with two black vultures, those bold rapacious creatures. Do you see them?’

‘They all look much the same to me,’ said Jacob. ‘Huge dark creatures sailing round and round.’

‘The bearded vulture is the one on the far right-hand side of the round,’ said Stephen. ‘See, he scratches his head. In Spanish he is called the bone-breaker.’

‘You have an unfair advantage with your perspectiveglass.’

‘He is considering. Yes, yes. He loses height. He drops, he drops!’

And indeed the great bird settled among the scattered bones beneath the stakes, pulled some bare ribs aside, seized a battered sacrum, grasped it in its powerful claws and took off with a leap, wings beating strongly, with the clear intent of dropping it from a great height onto a rock. But he was not fairly airborne before the two black vultures were upon him, one striking his back and the other brushing across his face. The sacrum dropped into an impenetrable thicket, hopelessly and entirely lost.

‘That is perfectly typical of your black vulture: greedy, precipitate, grasping,’ cried Stephen. ‘And stupid. A bird with as much sense as a pea-hen would have hit him fifty feet up, and a handy mate would have caught the bone in mid-air.’

Ibrahim understood not a word, but he did catch Stephen’s disappointment and frustration, and pointing away and away to the north-east he showed another highcircling flight a great way off. Jacob translated: ‘He says there are two or three score mothers of filth over there, waiting for the Dey’s men to finish skinning what he shot yesterday evening: but first he will show you the Shatt, which has countless red birds on it. We are obliged to go down that way, along the edge of the lake and so up the river-bank, partly because the direct slopes are very severe, and partly to avoid disturbing the deer, wild boars, lions and leopards which the Dey preserves entirely for himself.’

‘Would a devout Muslim eat wild boar?’ asked Stephen as they rode on.

‘Oh dear me, yes,’ said Jacob. ‘The Beni Mzab have no hesitation whatsoever in eating him: many the exquisite civet de sanglier have I eaten among them. But he must be wild, you know, wild and hairy, otherwise he would certainly be unclean. And for that matter they do not observe Ramadan, either, or...’

‘There is a Barbary falcon!’ cried Stephen.

‘Very well,’ said Jacob, not quite pleased at having his account of the Beni Mzab neglected for the sake of a bird; and not at all pleased either by the way his saddle kept pinching the inside of his thighs.

They rode for a while in silence, always going downhill, which aggravated Jacob’s discomfort. But abruptly Ibrahim stopped, and with one finger to his lips, pointed silently at two fresh round footprints on the muddy edge. He whispered into Jacob’s ear; and Jacob, leaning over to Stephen, murmured, ‘Leopard.’

And there indeed he was, the lovely spotted creature, sprawling insolently along a horizontal mossy branch: he watched them with a fine unconcern for quite a time, but when Stephen made a motion, a very cautious motion, towards his telescope, the leopard slipped off his branch on the far side without a sound, and wholly vanished.

On: and now that the slope was easier by far Jacob’s saddle hurt him less: his good humour returned, at least in part.

Yet he could still say, ‘My dear colleague, you may think me crass, but where birds, beasts and flowers are concerned all I mind about is are they dangerous, are they useful, are they good to eat.’

‘My dear colleague,’ cried Stephen, ‘I do most sincerely ask your pardon. I fear I must have been an everlasting bore.’

‘Not at all,’ said Jacob, ashamed of himself. And away on the left hand, at a distance they could not determine, a lion uttered what might be called a roar - a very deep lowing repeated four or perhaps five times before dying away - which gave the impression not indeed of menace, but of enormous power.

‘That is what I mean,’ said Jacob, after a moment’s silence. ‘I like to know about him, rather than a curious and possibly nondescript nuthatch.’

The ground was now levelling, and shortly after this they wound through a grove of high, well-grown tamarisks to the shore of the lake. And when they had pushed through the last of this screen there before them, quite close to, were countless flamingos, most of them up to their knees in the water with their long-necked heads deeply immerged, but others staring about or gossiping with a sound like geese. Those within twenty yards of the horsemen rose into the air with a most glorious show of black and above all scarlet, and flew, heads and legs stretched out, to the middle. Those that remained - the majority - carried on sieving nourishment from the Shatt. Stephen was entranced. With his glass, far over, he made out the mounds of their innumerable nests, raised mounds of mud sometimes with sitting bird, and a crowd of awkward, long-legged, pale fledglings. He also saw some crested coots and a cruising marsh-harrier - a hen bird - and a few egrets; but he was uneasily aware of having prated away interminably about his treecreeper earlier in the day, and now he said no more.

But Jacob turned a beaming face towards him and cried, ‘If that unspeakably glorious spectacle is ornithology, then I am an ornithologist. I had no idea that such splendour existed. You must tell me much, much more.’

Ibrahim asked Jacob whether the gentleman had seen the red birds; and when this was relayed, Stephen smiled at the youth, made appropriate gestures, and after some fumbling produced one of the few guineas he kept in a waistcoat pocket.

When Stephen had finished his disquisition on the anatomy of the flamingo’s bill, on the intricate processes that enabled the bird to gain its living - its very exact requirements where salinity and temperature were concerned - its apparent neglect of its offspring, herded in groups looked after and fed by the entire community - the need for much more work, for much more information, exact information - when he had finished, Ibrahim came closer and spoke to Jacob, pointing towards the head of the lake with great earnestness.