The Horse.
Little need be said of the horse in Egypt. He is not remarkable there for size or beauty, nor does he obtrude himself much on the traveller’s notice. Out of Cairo and Alexandria he is not frequently seen, and in those cities he generally appears in harness, drawing, always in pairs, the multiform public vehicles which have been culled, one would suppose, from all parts of Europe. He is seldom seen in good condition, unless he comes from the stable of the Viceroy, or of some grandee, a governor or pasha, or of some rich European resident. Taking the whole country, the number of them in good case would thus not be great. He suffers from his double competition with the ass and the camel; and from the absence, except in a few towns, of the use of wheeled vehicles. He is also affected injuriously by the dearness of his keep, compared with that of his competitors for man’s favour; barley and clover being indispensable for him. All this reduces him to the degrading position of selling for less than, at present not half as much as, a good donkey. A fair horse might have been purchased last spring for twenty, or even fifteen pounds. He is seldom more than fourteen hands high. With a tall Arab on his back, he looks too small for a cavalry horse. It is his great merit to be better than he looks. He is very docile, very hardy, and can go through a great deal of work. Trotting is not one of his paces. Egypt used to have a celebrated breed of horses of its own, but that is now nearly extinct.
CHAPTER LII.
THE DOG.—THE UNCLEAN ANIMAL.—THE BUFFALO.—THE OX.—THE GOAT AND THE SHEEP.—FERÆ NATURÆ.
Nobis et cum Deo et cum animalibus est aliqua communitas.—Lactantius.
The dog has, in the East, been spurned from the companionship of man. He is no longer allowed to guard a master’s property, or to be the playfellow of his children. He has been expelled from the home, and the door has been closed against him; every contumely has been heaped upon him; religion has pronounced him unclean, and his contact double defilement.
But centuries of ill-usage have not obliterated nature. He cannot divest himself of his old, hereditary, unreasoning feelings of eternal dependence, and fidelity. Man has, it is true, with injurious harshness, renounced the compact first indented in some distant age, perhaps in some remote northern clime; but the dog neither makes retort, nor claims his liberty. He remains faithful to his part of the broken bond. Only let him be near his old master, allow him no more companionship than to see him pass by, and he will bear all the scorn, and all the hardnesses, of his cruel lot, and will ever be forward to do him any service, however unhonoured. And so it is that he has become homeless and masterless, the scavenger, and the knacker, of eastern cities.
Among wild animals, every individual, or if the species be gregarious, every association of individuals, has its own beat, which is as much its own property as a landed estate is the property of its human owner. In this we have the germ, and the rationale, of the human developments of the natural necessity, and idea of property. Each of these beats is an appropriated hunting ground. Any outsider who appears within its limits is an invader, and is treated as such. So it is with the dogs of a large eastern city. They are divided into associations, and each association occupies its own district of the city. If a dog sets his foot beyond the boundaries of his own district, he is instantly attacked by those whose district he has invaded. An alarm is given, and all concerned rush to drive off the intruder, who is often seriously mauled. These raids, and their repulses, generally take place at night. To sybarite travellers, and to those who take no interest in the life of the world around them, the canine uproar caused in these affairs is simply insufferable. The growling is certainly very harsh: you might think it issued from the throats of packs of hyænas. Many of these dogs are badly wounded, we may infer, from one another’s teeth in these night rows, because if such results do not ensue, for what earthly purpose do they make all this uproar? It would then be made out of pure cussedness, which one cannot believe of them.
I never saw a bitch with more than two pups—seldom with more than one. I supposed some inhabitant of the district had knocked the rest of the family on the head, to prevent the pack becoming too numerous.
If a dog in the interior of the city makes himself disagreeable, he is taken up by the scruff of the neck, and carried outside the city. He is never known to return again to his old haunts: in fact, he is unable to do so, being always hindered by those in possession of the intervening districts from passing through them. He thus remains on the outside of the city, an outcast from the dog community, a pariah among dogs, for the rest of his days.
They never show any disposition to molest one in the day-time; at night, however, it is always necessary to go about provided with a good stick, for they will then scarcely ever allow a Frank to pass without assailing him, if not with their teeth, at all events with their tongues. The town dogs are about the size of our English pointers, but with longer coats, generally of a yellowish colour. The tail is somewhat bushy. The village dogs are larger and much fiercer. They are dark brown or black. Their size, courage, and social position improve as the river is ascended. I met a Scotchman, who carried his dislike, and fear, of these ill-used animals so far, that he never went out, night or day without a revolver, or a kind of fire-arm, of German manufacture, which goes off without a report. He boasted of the hecatombs he had slain—perhaps more had been maimed than slain—during his residence in the country. At one time he had cleared off so many in the quarter of the city in which he was living, that the natives, inferring from the number of dead dogs found in the neighbourhood of his house that it was his doing, laid a complaint against him before the cadi for canicide. He was admonished to abstain for the future from taking the life of, or wounding, useful and unoffending animals.
Although the Arab can give the dog no place in his affections, nor allow him the smallest familiarity, yet in his treatment of him you may trace the working of a sort of compassionate kindliness. He sets up for him water-troughs about the city; and I often observed a poor man, as he ate his scanty meal, throw a morsel to a canine mendicant, probably, and if so not misthinkingly, in the name of God.