Sport in Eastern Persia

44 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain
Kahmat's hawk-like vision was to me very in-
is
teresting. Spotting game a knack which to
some extent may be acquired by practice. A man
with normally good eyesight, who knows exactly
what to look for this is important will pick up
distant game on the limited area of hill or plain
at which he is looking that is, on which he has
focussed his eyes for the time being. The best
shikaris, natives of "the hills," see beasts that are
outside this area. Their eyes seem to be wide-
angled like an insect's, looking
in all directions at
once, and in a flash the presence of game in this
angle of vision is telegraphed
to the brain. Most
big-game sportsmen know how the appearance of
animals on a distant sky-line is conveyed to one's
intelligence without having consciously looked at
the spot. The triumph of eyesight lies in picking
up such beasts when they are not on the sky-line.
In some respects such sight as this is superior
to that of animals, as it is backed by superior
intelligence. An animal's concept of
"
man-
danger," for instance, seems only to be stimulated
by a moving or an upright figure. It is a
common experience among sportsmen for an
animal to stare unalarmed at a man lying motion-
less, even at a range where every detail of his
features must be visible. But the human mind-
picture of "beasts" is not limited in this way;