vinegar, with a view to keep them cool, and prevent her being tempted by
the sight of water to alight, by which the journey might have been
prolonged, or the billet lost. The pigeons performed this journey in two
hours and a half. The messenger had a young brood at Aleppo, and was
sent down in an uncovered cage to Scanderoon, from whence, as soon as
set at liberty, she returned with all possible expedition to her nest.
It is said that the pigeons when let fly from Scanderoon, instead of
bending their course towards the high mountains surrounding the plain,
mounted at once directly up, soaring still almost perpendicularly till
out of sight, as if to surmount at once the obstacles intercepting their
view of the place of their destination. Maillet, in his "Description de
l'Egypt," tells us of a pigeon despatched from Aleppo to Scanderoon,
which, mistaking its way, was absent for three days, and in that time
had made an excursion to the island of Ceylon; a circumstance then
deduced from finding green cloves in the bird's stomach, and credited at
Aleppo. In the time of the holy wars, certain Saracen ambassadors who
came to Godfrey of Antioch from a neighbouring prince, sent intelligence
to their master of the success of their embassy, by means of pigeons,
fixing the billet to the bird's tail. Hirtius and Brutus, at the siege
of Modena, held a correspondence with one another by means of pigeons.
Ovid informs us that Taurosthenus, by a pigeon stained with purple, gave
notice to his father of his victory at the Olympic games, sending it to
him at Ægina; and Anacreon tells us, that he conveyed a _billet-doux_ to
his beautiful Bathyllid, by a dove. Thus, says Bewick, "the bird is let
loose, and in spite of surrounding armies and every obstacle that would
have effectually prevented any other means of conveyance, guided by
instinct alone, it returns directly home, where the intelligence is so
much wanted. Sometimes they have been the peaceful bearers of glad
tidings to the anxious lover, and to the merchant of the no less welcome
news of the safe arrival of his vessel at the desired port."