It Is All the Fault of the British

The title is not mine. It’s an old Persian proverb. Bear Rowell referred to it in a letter she wrote me many years ago when she was working on a book entitled “The Lions of Paradise”— a book that was, to my knowledge, unfinished at the time of her death in 2012.

For those who did not know or know of Bear, she was a freelance writer and animal lover, especially, but not limited to, Sighthounds. From time to time, as she was documenting her vast knowledge of the origins of these ancient Eastern breeds, she would share parts of the book with me while it was in the developmental stage. 

I recently came across a letter from her that began — in the familiar wry way she had with words — with the Persian proverb I use as my title, followed by, “Oscar Wilde couldn’t have said it better,” and then offered me “Part V: The Coin of the East.” I’ve taken it as the focal point of this article preceded by a paragraph from this same letter, which offers a small sample of her off-the-cuff writing. It demonstrates the depth of Tazi history Bear had at her fingertips. Illuminating and informative historical references invariably peppered conversations with her.

“Persians perfected the art and science of the Tazi spectrum long before it was understood in the West, producing among other things chickens as domestic, tractable (or belligerent depending on the breed selected by the buyer) livestock, hundred petaled roses and uniform Tazis. Arab horses and Tazi strains were famous throughout the world, as were Arab owners who could recite their animal’s multigenerational pedigree, often with descriptions of each animal therein. While Alexander the Great and his Greek and Albanian compatriots were keeping snakes as house pets; while Roman Europe kept weasels as housecats for the purpose of chasing black, and only black, cats through medieval streets to kill them, simultaneously casting anxious eyes on black dogs, Arabs and Persians were breeding cats, dogs and horses without equal anywhere on earth. Selective breeding to fix type was practiced in ancient Egypt, where a rather prolonged vogue for the achondroplastic dwarves produced upon occasion by the royal Tazis culminated in the breed known today as the Dachshund.”

Even with so small a sample, it is impossible not to recognize Bear’s talent as a writer. The creative imagination and amazing command of language was, and is, self-evident, as was her comprehension of how Sighthounds, mainly the Tazi, Afghan and the Saluki/Sloughi evolved in their native regions. The following chapter is, clearly, only a part of the story, as only she could tell it. It speaks to the years during and after the British intervened.

“It’s all the fault of the British,” she repeated at the end of the letter, typical of her effective use of repetition and closing with her spot-on humor. “As noted, Oscar Wilde couldn’t have said it better.”

The Lions of Paradise

Part V: The Coin of the East

By Bear Rowell

Picking his way through the twists and turns of the slim defile, the horseman follows his dogs to the crest of the Khyber Pass. Behind him the caravan plods steadily upward; shaggy Bactrian camels laden with the treasures of the East. Before him is his destination: Peshawar, frontier city of the British Raj. On its outskirts is the caravanserai to which he'll deliver his charges, assuming he can get them there. This is the last leg of the punishing journey, but it's a dangerous one. As a daleel — a caravan pilot — he's accustomed to danger; it figures prominently in his job description. Serving under the bashi — the leader of the caravan — the daleel handles the logistics: how long to march, where to camp for the night, the safest route to travel. Since much depends upon the current mood and whereabouts of the nomadic tribes whose territories they cross, he talks with merchants, wayfarers and fellow pilots in bazaars, caravanserais and chaikhanas as they ply the routes from Kashgar to Aleppo. Dismounting now, he stretches his legs, affording his horse a moment's respite. His dogs beside him, he surveys the saw-toothed, vertiginous landscape of Waziristan, the lawless strip between Afghanistan and the British Raj, looking for signs of trouble. Crowned with native watchtowers, encircled by thick walls, tribal villages dot the barren hills. There at close of day, gunmen eye the passing loot with professional interest, weighing the odds as the caravan approaches. Within the Pass he is safe enough, guarded by the Khyber Rifles, crack troops whose checkpoints are strung closely along this 33-mile highway of concomitant commerce and brigandage. Still, he keeps his dogs close by, for they are precious commodities. Like the daleel, they have honed their craft, and he would be the first to tell you that he couldn't do his job without them. When the trade routes were centered on Iran, Englishmen called such dogs Persian Greyhounds. But this is the British hour, and she has put her stamp upon it, even as her unparalleled strength and sheer expanse of territory have paved the ancient routes with gold. Along with more goods and a greater variety of them, such is the size of Empire that it has bridged the Tazi spectrum, revealing the vast array of regional types answering to that single description. As the dogs are taken up by British fanciers, a pattern is emerging: Silk Road types like the daleels are called Afghan Hounds, while the relatively smooth coated Tazis of the Spice Route and the Incense Road are called Salukis. Still, in these decades between the World Wars, the nomenclature is far from seamless. Even so careful a wordsmith as novelist Vita Sackville-West, breaking a long and difficult journey from England to Iran at the Baghdad home of Gertrude Bell, wrote to her friend Virginia Woolf:

February, 1926

Baghdad

I've bought a dog. The garden here has been filled with dogs that were potentially mine, — all come in from the desert, led on a leash by Arabs. This one is a marvel of elegance, — long tapering paws, and a neck no thicker than your wrist. So off we set together tonight, the sloughi puppy and I, to face the snow in the high passes.

Sloughi is the same word as Saluki, and as the new name took hold, spelling was mostly a matter of colonial linguistics. Western fanciers were intent upon differentiation; upon building types into separate breeds. Quoted in the 1907 edition of Cassell's “New Book of the Dog,” the Hon. Florence Amherst, patron of the Saluki in England, set it in stone:

It should be the object of all those who import the Greyhounds of the East, and breed them in this country, to try to keep distinct the different varieties, which in many cases have been so carefully preserved in their own lands. The historic interest attached to each breed is alone a sufficient inducement to do so.

Not to mention the colonial mindset. Happening upon the local Tazis in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia — known at the time as French North Africa — colonial Frenchmen found sufficient inducement to pronounce the Sloughi a distinct and separate breed; that breed in fact which best exemplified the ancient and original Tazi. Since this had everything to do with colonial rivalries as well as the romance of authenticity, much was made of every unique particular, every link to the ages. The very quintessence of Colonial Romance, here is French colonial officer and administrator Xavier Przezdziecki in his salad days, hunting with his Sloughis. Author of the brilliant “Our Leviers: the Past, Present and Future of all Sighthounds” (French edition, 1975; English edition, translated by Jonathon Brown, 2001), such was the excellence of his scholarship and powers of observation that despite major advances in our scientific knowledge, his book remains must reading. "Destiny brought the Sloughi my way," he wrote. "They became my friends, the companions of my life." They also became a cause celebre as fanciers worked to shore up their claims. Some called attention to its special nickname among the Berbers: Oska, meaning pretty one, or sweetheart. Others pointed to the patterns of scarification cut into the front legs of Berber Sloughis as a sign of tribal esteem, as well as individual ownership. As all claims for local Tazis do, these rest upon the myth of isolation. Over the centuries — so the argument goes — while Europeans transformed the Saluki of the Mediterranean littoral, the vast emptiness of the Sahara kept the desert Sloughi pure. Were it not for the trade routes that had crisscrossed both the Steppe and the Sahara from ancient times, linking them together and replenishing the local Tazi stock at every oasis town along the way; and were it not for the fact that by common consent, the nomadic tribes who had the best and purest Sloughis were the very ones who had the most frequent contact with the caravans, the argument might have proven more persuasive. But in fact, serological studies have revealed that the Sloughi is as closely related to the Afghan Hound and the Taigan as he is to the Saluki.

On 1 March, 1926 meanwhile, Vita's husband Harold Nicolson wrote in his diary of his reunion with Vita in a snow-covered village on the Persian frontier. Overjoyed and greatly relieved, he described her safe arrival in "a little fur cap," cuddling "a Saluki on her knee." Thereafter, the two forms of the name became enshrined; Saluki in English, Sloughi in French.

Beyond official circles, where contact with Europeans was less frequent, the dogs retained the ancient and honored name of Tazi, by which they were known from the farthest reaches of Central Asia to the trading ports along the Mediterranean. Universally recognized, universally desired, their value was high. They were thought of as the coin of the east.

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My two cents … After some contemplation into what was clearly an encyclopedic grasp on the subject of Eastern hounds, Bear’s perspective begs one obvious question: If asked about our Western versions of these ancient creatures, what would an Arab’s observations be today? Say, of those dogs from the ’40s and ’50s to the present. Like, how do they stack up? I suggest the response might begin with the Persian proverb.