Recent visits to Syria and Jordan highlighted some of the differences in the way Saluqis are raised and worked in the contrasting life styles of the settled people on the edge of the desert and the Bedouin.

It was in the spring, a time when I always feel the urge to join my hunting friends in Syria for a few days’ coursing, that I had the chance to undertake a journey that took me from the Syrian Desert to Wadi Rum in Jordan. The weather was all upside down: while Britain was bathed in unseasonably warm sunshine, Syria was buffeted by cold winds and rain. Arriving in Damascus in the early morning after a five-hour delay at Heathrow Airport I was glad that I had had the foresight to pack some winter woollies because events showed that I would have need of all of them before the journey was over. My destination was however further north to where the town of Hama sits on the Orontes River that carves its way like a snake through the reddish and fertile plain between the Ansariya mountains which run down into Lebanon and the great Syrian Desert which stretches eastwards to Palmyra and onwards to the Iraqi border.

In Hama and some of the nearby villages live communities of farmers who are normally busy tending to their crops at this time of the year. However I have friends among them who are easily persuaded to drop everything and take off a few days for indulging in their passion for coursing their Saluqis. But first we had to meet and discuss the arrangements in the newly refurbished reception room of one of the leading families. In the splendid Ottoman style stone house around a courtyard we were entertained to tea and coffee in a room on which no expense had been spared to restore its intricately carved and painted wood-pannelled walls to their former glory. The talk was all of hunting: where we should go, who should go, whose hounds we should take, whether we should camp in the desert in view of the weather, etc. In the end we decided on a series of day trips from Hama with about four hounds and as many hunters.

It proved a wise decision not to go camping. We started off early the next morning in the pouring rain and an icy wind to drive eastwards to the limits of rain-fed cultivation. Here the farmers scratch the surface of the stony ground in the dips and hollows where a little more moisture might be retained for their winter wheat. It is the type of terrain that suits the hare. Here on the otherwise barren and windswept plain it has a source of food as well as some shelter from the predators – hawks and foxes but sadly not from the lampers who come by night and shoot indiscriminately.

We had with us only three hounds: Guru, a four-year-old smooth cream dog, Jukha, a two-year-old smooth red bitch and Risha, a ten-month-old smooth black and tan bitch, who was on her first hunt. All were finely drawn, muscular and quite small by western standards and all had their ears cropped.

They were keen to go but with the rain coming steadily down we decided to pause a while for some breakfast. Afterwards the rain eased off and we made a start by walking up a patch of winter wheat. Almost immediately a big brown hare got up so close in front of me that I could see the black points on its ears distinctly. I gave the traditional call: “Hai, hai!” and the hounds were slipped. Guru was unsighted and ran off at a tangent but Jukha and the puppy were on to it in a flash and it looked as if it would be a short course but then the hare doubled back onto a track running right across our line of vision. It was a magnificent performance in full view by hare and hounds with the hare eventually making its escape among some boulders. The puppy had acquitted herself particularly well. However the rain set in again relentlessly in a landscape more reminiscent of a damp day on the Scottish moors than of the desert and rather bedraggled we decided to call it a day and repair to a friend’s farmhouse for a hot meal.

The next day was cold but dry and we were up before dawn for the long drive by lorry in the direction of the Euphrates where to encourage the regeneration of the flora the authorities have bulldozed an earthen wall around a vast area of semi-desert in an attempt to keep out the wandering shepherds and their sheep and goats. This policy has been very successful but has infuriated the Bedouin who regard this land as their traditional grazing ground.

The regeneration has also encouraged wildlife and my companions spoke rapturously of coursing 14 hares there one day, though managing to catch only two as the denser ground cover made it easier for the hares to escape. So we set off in high hopes of some exciting sport with four hounds: a young black and white feathered dog, of which its owner was very proud because of its hunting prowess, Qassab, a young feathered black and tan dog with the fierce look of an eagle and two very lean, mean looking smooth grizzles.

After two hours, walking without so much as a sign of a hare I began to wonder about my friends’ stories but then way out on the flank the black and white dog, which had been running loose, got onto a fox, coursed it and killed it on its own. Soon after a hare got up and gave the black and white and the black and tan a long chase with the black and white just snatching it in the end. However the black and tan managed to injure a back leg in the process on the viciously stony ground and had to be retired. We all retired to the lorry with him as we had forgotten entirely about breakfast and were in urgent need of some sustenance. 

The respite was short-lived as the hunters were keen to get on.

After another long slog over the hard ground in the teeth of a bitterly cold wind we eventually put up another hare which all the hounds coursed, including the black and tan which had made a rapid recovery. By this time we had all had enough and just wanted to escape from the relentless wind. A deserted hovel provided some shelter while kebabs were miraculously produced and grilled over a most welcome fire. We still had the long drive back to Hama ahead of us and decided that the next day would be a rest day.

The next day was however fine and warmer so my friends took me to see the Saluqis in some of the outlying villages. In no time we must have seen at least twenty hounds, including a beautiful litter of seven plump two-week-old puppies. Six of the puppies were almost black but would be black and tan like their sire and just one was red like their well-nourished dam.

This breeder’s hounds were all well feathered and a bit more like the Sarona Kelb type than most of the Saluqis in this area. Yet nearby we visited another breeder who had only smooths of a type that made me think of Dobermans – enormously powerful hounds that one or two of my friends disparaged as too heavy for serious coursing.

That would have been my reaction too if I had not known the equally powerful grandsire of three of them with which I had coursed some years ago and which had accounted for three foxes and four hares in a morning.
Later we went to see how the hunters decorate their hounds with henna, a green powder made from a dried and pulverised bush which imparts an orange dye to the skin or hair. The Arabs use henna for dyeing their hair or beard and for making patterns on the backs of women’s hands at wedding ceremonies. However they also use it traditionally on their hounds’ feet not only for decoration but also for toughening the pads and for treating injuries. The powder is first moistened with water and mixed into a paste. It is then applied thickly to the paws one at a time. Each paw is bound up with cloth and encased in plastic sheeting to keep the moisture in. I was astonished that the demonstration hound stood there completely relaxed and simply let it all happen. I was even more surprised to hear that the pads would be kept on for 24 hours, as I am sure my own hounds would have ripped them off within minutes.

All the while we watched the ceremony more and more hounds kept appearing, with a quite a number of puppies among them. I was sorely tempted by a very promising young tricolour feathered bitch, which even had both her ears, but our shortsighted rules would have prevented her registration in the United Kingdom.

There was to be no more relaxation. The next morning we were up again before dawn and on the road for a final day’s coursing in another area where cultivation meets the gravel desert. It was fine and pleasantly warm. We had four hounds with us: Qassab, Guru and Risha had been out with us before but we also had a young smooth black and tan dog. We were in luck this time. We quickly put up a hare which all four hounds pursued and after a long chase eventually caught. The hunters went straight on and over the next couple of hours we coursed three more.

By then the hounds were tiring and they had provided enough food for the pot. So we relaxed in the warm sunshine and picnicked among the wild flowers that had burst forth after the rain. It was blissful and in many ways not all that unlike many a day’s coursing with a few friends that I have enjoyed in England. My next stop was quite different.

Amman is only a short flight from Damascus but what a contrast! Whereas Damascus is set in a flat green oasis below Mount Qassioun, Amman sprawls over seven barren hills. My destination was however Wadi Rum, the long sandy valley that weaves through the rugged mountains down to the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Here I had arranged to stay with an old friend from among the Bedouin who live there. Although he has moved into a smart new house in the village, he still keeps up many of the traditional ways of the Bedouin, including breeding Saluqis. My home for the next few days was however not his house but a goats hair tent in a magnificent setting at the foot of a steep bluff deep in Wadi Rum, where we would experience the old ways of life.

Our companions were my friend’s mother, who looked after the livestock, his brother and a couple of their friends. We also had with us La’ban, a six-year-old smooth black and tan dog, Hazza, a smooth cream bitch and Warda, a two-month-old smooth white bitch, which proved the star attraction. La’ban was from the north near the Iraq border and Hazza from towards Sinai: they both had the broad heads and turned back ears of some of the Saluqis in North Africa. Hazza was one month pregnant.

Warda was the product of a red and white bitch and a grizzle dog from another village in Wadi Rum. She had almost died as a small puppy when she had banged her head, which swelled up like an egg. My friend took it away from the breeder, syringed away the fluid from the swelling, gave her some antibiotics and she made a quick recovery. She had a lovely nature, was sharp and strong and I would gladly have had her.

The first major difference from Syria manifested itself when I started to ask questions in Arabic about the Saluqi. At first the Bedouin appeared mystified, until one of them said: “Oh, you mean Salag!” This was an interesting linguistic puzzle. In Syria you say in everyday speech “Slougui” for the singular and “Slagui” for the plural: whereas in Wadi Rum they say “Salag” with the plural “Sulgan”. In fact both these words are derived from the classical Arabic plurals for “Saluqi”: “Salaq” and “Silqan” or “Sulqan”, though why the Bedouin should use a plural form to denote a single hound is curious. Perhaps even curiouser is the fact that Salaq and Silqan are also plurals of Silq, an old Arabic word for wolf.

Wadi Rum is now a protected area and hunting is not allowed. So my friends could only simulate how they used to hunt and train their Saluqis for hunting in the old days. The first day we went to see a camel train wending its way down the Wadi with Saluqis trotting alongside, just as they would have done in past times. The Saluqis learnt to trot in the shadow of the camels, though if it became too hot for them they might be lucky enough to be carried in panniers on camelback. In this fashion they travelled the length and breadth of the Arab world, where sometimes they might be given away to dignitaries en route or be used for breeding, so that then as now the breed would be constantly spread and renewed far and wide.

The next day we went out with another Bedouin who brought along Warda’s dam and her grizzle sister and black and tan brother. The Bedouin demonstrated their method of hunting, which is quite different from that practiced in Syria. Here it is all about tracking. The soft sand shows up clearly the tracks of all manner of creatures and as we walked they eagerly pointed out where the hedgehog had gone, where the lizard had slithered and at last where a hare had hopped. Once the hare’s tracks had been located it was then a matter of following it. On this occasion we followed until the tracks disappeared, obliterated by the sand storm that was blowing up. We retreated to a more sheltered spot where my friends released a tame hare for the puppies to chase as part of their training. I was amazed to see how Warda and her sister gave chase immediately; whereas their brother showed not the slightest interest. Twice it was shown the hare but he simply would not run after it.

We also found the back-filled entrance to a Jerboa’s hole. The Bedouin showed how they used to dig Jerboas out to use them for training the Saluqis. The practice was to cover the entrance hole with a headcloth and to stamp or bang on the ground all around. The Jerboa would take fright, come shooting out of its hole and become tangled up in the headcloth. If they caught one, they would tie a stick across its back to prevent it from diving back down its hole and release it for the puppies to chase. On this occasion the Jerboa failed to appear.

Back at our tent one of the old Bedouin described their standard for the Saluqi while running his hands over Hazza, the main points of which were: the muzzle should be long, the jaws strong, the ears floppy and close to the head, the chest should be broad and deep and the tuck up high, the shoulder muscles should be long to carry the legs backwards when galloping, there should be room for three fingers between the shoulder blades and four fingers between the hip bones, the thigh should be well muscled and the tail should come down to the hock. As he finished it was prayer time and as he had been handling a dog, even a Saluqi, he needed to wash his hands. There being no water there, he simply dug down deep into the sand until he reached a moister level and proceeded to “wash” his hands with the slightly damp sand. He said that if the sand were dry, he would simply bang his hands to raise some dust and “rinse” his hands with dust. He agreed that it was acceptable to Muslims to handle Saluqis, because although they were dogs, they were not “najis” (unclean) like common curs. One said that when he was small they used to muzzle the Saluqis to ensure that they did not eat any filth. When I asked if they ever cropped their hounds’ ears as they commonly do in parts of Syria, they said that they might crop the ears of guard dogs, so that they should be more alert, but the Saluqi was not a guard dog, so there was need to crop them.

Back in the village a sad sight greeted us. The feathered sister of Warda’s dam appeared with four small, furry puppies pursuing her for a feed. She belonged to my friend. When in season one of the big guard dogs that hung around the village had somehow got into the compound where she lived and mated her. The puppies were therefore only “Luqis” and would not be kept but distributed among the shepherds as guard dogs. She was however a good bitch and would be kept. One of the Bedouin told me in all seriousness that the number of puppies in a litter depended upon the number of ties: there would be one puppy for each tie! The question that bothered me was what was the future for these hounds in the new world of conservation and tourism in which they live? Elsewhere I had been told many times that there was no point in raising Saluqis if they could not hunt. The Bedouin here had two answers: first there would always be some hunting and secondly they liked to have them around, much as they have a camel or two in the backyard. They agreed there was a need for controls but the real problem was not with the Bedouin and their Saluqis but with the hunters and their guns. Later I spoke about this to one of the leading Jordanian authorities at a ceremony in Wadi Rum to release ten oryx into the wild. He confirmed that the hunting of mammals was banned throughout Jordan and of all wildlife in Wadi Rum, but at the same time he admitted that it was difficult to change old habits and to monitor the wilderness. My general conclusion is therefore that the Saluqi is reasonably safe in Syria, where there are evidently lots of hounds and the hunters have found a niche for them on the margins of the desert and the sown; whereas the hold of the relatively small number of Saluqis among the Bedouin in Jordan is rather more precarious.