man lost his life by falling from one of the precipices of the Helvellyn mountains. Three months afterwards his remains were discovered at the bottom of a ravine, and his faithful dog, almost a skeleton, still guarding them. Sir Walter Scott beautifully describes the scene:
Dark-green was the spot, 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretched in decay;
Like the corpse of an outcast, abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay;
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.
How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garments, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
Burchell, in his Travels in Africa, places the connexion between man and the dog, and the good qualities of this animal, in an interesting point of view. A pack of dogs of various descriptions formed a necessary part of his caravan, occasionally to provide him with food, but oftener to defend him from wild beasts or robbers.
"While almost every other quadruped fears man as his most formidable enemy," says this interesting traveller, "there is one who regards him as his companion, and follows him as his friend. We must not mistake the nature of the case. It is not because we train him to our use, and have made choice of him in preference to other animals, but because this particular species of animal feels a natural desire to be useful to man, and, from spontaneous impulse, attaches himself to him. Were it not so, we should see in various countries an equal familiarity with other quadrupeds, according to their habits, and the taste or caprices of different nations; but, everywhere, it is the dog only that takes delight in associating with us, and in sharing our abode. It is he who knows us personally, watches over us, and warns us of danger. It is impossible for the naturalist not to feel a conviction that this friendship between creatures so different from each other must be the result of the laws of nature; nor can the humane and feeling mind avoid the belief that kindness to those animals, from which he derives continued and essential assistance, is part of the moral duty of man.
Often in the silence of the night, when all my people have been fast asleep around the fire, have I stood to contemplate these faithful animals watching by their side, and have learned to esteem them for their social inclination towards mankind. When, wandering over pathless deserts, oppressed with vexation and distress at the conduct of my own men, I have turned to these as my only friends, and felt how much inferior to them was man when actuated only by selfish views."
Of the stanchness and incorruptible fidelity of the dog, and his disregard of personal inconvenience and want, when employed in our service, it is impossible to entertain a doubt. We have sometimes thought that the attachment of the dog to its master was increased, or, at least, the exhibition of it, by the penury of the owner. At all events one fact is plain enough, that, while poverty drives away from us many a companion of our happier hours, it was never known to diminish the love of our quadruped friend.
The early history of the dog has been described, and the abomination in which he was held by the Israelites. At no great distance of time, however, we find him, almost in the neighbourhood of Palestine, in one of the islands of the Ionian Sea, the companion and the friend of princes, and deserving their regard.
reader will forgive a somewhat abbreviated account of the last meeting of Ulysses and his dog.
Twenty years had passed since Argus, the favourite dog of Ulysses, had been parted from his master. The monarch at length wended his way homewards, and, disguised as a beggar, for his life would have been sacrificed had he been known, stood at the entrance of his palace-door. There he met with an old dependant, who had formerly served him with fidelity and who was yet faithful to his memory; but age and hardship and care, and the disguise which he now wore, had so altered the wanderer that the good Eumæus had not the most distant suspicion with whom he was conversing; but: