KING Solomon was journeying through a thirsty land—sand beneath his feet, sand around as far as a man could see, above the pitiless blue sky. No tree could grow here, and no rock was there to cast its shadow on the sand. “What shall shield me,” said the king, “from the fury of this sun?” Then was heard the sound of light wings beating the air, for all creatures knew the voice of the words of King Solomon; and there came through the air a cloud of hoopoes, and they spread their barred wings, and closed them together, wing to wing, and they shielded King Solomon. So, when the toilsome journey was over, the king called the hoopoes, and said, “O hoopoes, whatwill ye that I give you for your service done to me this day?” And the hoopoes said, “O King, give us crowns of gold”; and the king gave the hoopoes crowns of pure gold.
But men hunted the hoopoes through the length and breadth of the land, and they killed them for the sake of their golden crowns; then the hoopoes cried to King Solomon, for King Solomon knew the voice of all beasts and birds, yea of the creeping things also, and the hoopoes said, “Take away our crowns, O king, for men kill us for the sake of our golden crowns.” And Solomon took away their crowns. “Yet,” said he, “it shall be known what the hoopoes did for the King,” and he gave them crowns of golden feathers.
So says theBook of the Enchantments of the King, and that is why my hoopoe was called Solomon.
I was riding through a village near Thebes in the evening, and among the groups of children who held out grimy hands and cried “Backsheesh”; and the half-blind boys who made the somewhat startling statement, “Finished Fazzer, finishedMuzzer, I yam berry hongerry”; I saw at the door of a mud house three children, one of whom swung towards me a bird he held by the wings,—and I recognised the helpless, half-dead, fluffy mass for a hoopoe.
I refused to give them the wages of sin, and they were too much surprised to attempt to hinder the departure of the hoopoe. Indeed, if they had kept it much longer, it would have departed without assistance by the silent road, for one claw had been tied back to its leg, and it had been swung in that manner till its tormentors happened to think that they had better try the wings instead; its crown of feathers had been pulled out; and when I got back to the hotel, it shut its eyes and fell forwards on the point of its beak as if it was about to die. The string had been tied so tightly that it was with difficulty that we got it free from its bonds, and then we plied it with whisky and water. That was no easy matter either, for it would not open its mouth, and one had first to get the long beak open, and then to hold it so, while from a feather dipped in the refreshing beverage a drop trickled down the pink throat; then the bill was shut, and one watched to see if the feathers of the throat wouldruffle and give sign that the drop was passing down. The method succeeded, for presently the little forked tongue was shot out to suck up the liquid, the little brown eyes opened, and the hoopoe, taking in the situation, hurried into the corner of the window-sill, and supposed that he was hiding himself by laying his long bill up the wall.
It would certainly be necessary to provide the hoopoe with a habitation, were he only the guest of a day; so a crate which had contained pottery was found, its straw was arranged nestwise, and the bird was bestowed in it, much to its own satisfaction.
But the diet was a problem. Its natural food was live insects. I went so far as to kill a housefly, but it was a very disgusting process, and the fly was not at all well received; moreover, I was not sure whether the hoopoe was of an age to receive, shall I saypeptonisedfood from his parents, or whether he preferred the raw material. But as the best compromise, including the carnivorous and the more-or-less-peptonised element, I decided on hard-boiled egg; that had to be administered in the same way as the whisky, with drops of water to helpit to run down. After this I put the hoopoe into the crate for the night.
I frankly confess that I expected to find a stiff little body there in the morning, but instead I saw a bright brown eye fixed upon me, and a smooth, compact, though crownless little hoopoe, sitting in the straw.
If the hoopoe was going to live, other things became necessary—first and foremost, a name.
The name suited him exactly. From the time that he was called Solomon, hebecameSolomon. We never spoke of him as the hoopoe; indeed, it is with great difficulty that I have avoided so far using his name. Now I have told you when and why he was named; henceforth, then, he is Solomon.
But, secondly, Solomon must have exercise, andfresh animal food. It would be better, both for the sake of digestion and economy of time, if the two could be combined, and I spent most of my time in effecting the combination in one of the garden beds.
The beds in the hotel garden are excellently convenient for feeding and exercising half-fledged hoopoes; they are lowered three or four inches below the level of the paths, for the purposes of irrigation. Thus when, once a week, the water is turned in, the beds become a series of pools, until the water has gradually soaked away through the rich black mud. Further, the beds are surrounded with a bushy little plant, so that when Solomon tried to spring over the edge and escape me, his wings were not strong enough for the purpose; he sprawled on the bushy plant, wings spread and legs kicking, and was easily captured.
But it was Sunday, and the hour drew towards church time. Solomon must go home and be fed before I went to church. Accordingly, I went to catch him, but there was one thing I had forgotten. At the corner of the bed was a drain through which the irrigation was effected. Quick as thought Solomon ran in there, and was out of arm’s length in a minute. What was to be done? The bellwas already ringing to church; decent and godly people, with their prayer-books in their hands, were walking down the garden path; and there was I plunging round the drain in search of an ungrateful, half-fledged, discrowned hoopoe. I dared not leave him there, to be the prey of the numerous and ravenous hawks and crows.
But suddenly, as aDeus ex machina, Mahmoud the gardener hove in sight; so I called to Mahmoud, and Mahmoud called to Ibrahim, and Ibrahim brought a dry palm leaf, and we put it in at the opposite end of the drain, and made a very terrible shaking noise in the inside with it; and there hurried out a very long beak, supported by a very small bird at the end of it; and Solomon was captured in time for church.
When I came back from church, Solomon’s crate was empty. We trod carefully over the room for fear of squashing him flat, like a botanical specimen; we looked under the sofa, under the chairs, and Solomon was not there. Then a little scuffling noise on the balcony attracted our attention, and there was Solomon with a guilty look in his face. We lined the inside of his crate with stiff newspaper.
But when I came back from lunch I saw aridiculous silhouette far up the half-lighted passage. There again was Solomon! He had carried on mining operations on the paper during lunch, and had escaped again. Another crate with narrower bars had to be procured. Of course he instantly put his head through and got it fixed, and I had to seize him by the beak and push him back.
Now, by all the laws of animal literature, Solomon ought to have been devoted to me by this time. If he had studied theWhole Duty of Birds, he would have found out that he must wake me at dawn (I cannot feel sure that I should have appreciated that); that he must flutter his wings with joy and chirp when I came into the room, even if he did not feel equal to opening his little bill and pouring forth a grateful song (do hoopoes sing?); that he must follow me round the room; that he must eat out of my hand; that he must beat his breast against the bars of his cage when I went away.
Solomon did none of these things. He shut his beak tightly when I wished to feed him, he pecked at me when I tried to open it, he ran away when I attempted to catch him, he struggled when I hadgot him, he hurled himself from my hand into the crate as soon as possible, and he did not like me at all.
By the third day Solomon had immensely developed. People who had considerately told me that it was impossible to rear a hoopoe, now foretold that he would live. He extended his mining operations to the garden. I am not sure that he found any insects, but he did great execution on the loose earth at the foot of the palm-tree. He looked quite like a real grown-up hoopoe when he ran about the garden bed and dug his bill in up to its roots; and in the evening he flopped off the window-sill while I was feeding him, and had a grand race round the room.
That night I dismissed the fear of finding the little cold corpse in the morning.
But when I opened the shutters and looked at Solomon in the morning, he was not awake; his head was tucked behind his wing. I took him out, he looked round dreamily, and sank on to the ground. I got whisky and water again, and fed him with a feather; he pecked and struggled at first, but presently he allowed me to open his beak, and I saw that the little pink mouth was getting very white. Still I gave him more, hoping it wouldhave the same reviving effect as at first. But presently Solomon dropped his beak on the window-sill, and the drop trickled down it again, for he had stopped swallowing. He laid his head down, and stretched out his little black claws; and heaved gently once or twice; and no more.
As the Arabs say, it was “Finished Solomon.”
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH