The Dog | Page 6

setter, and were likely again to multiply the species. Mr. Daniel remarks that Mr. Brook, famous for his menagerie, turned a wolf to a Pomeranian bitch at heat; the congress was immediate, and, as usual between the dog and bitch, ten puppies were the produce. These animals strongly resembled their sire both in appearance and disposition, and one of them being let loose at a deer, instantly caught at the animal's throat and killed it. (See Daniel's Rural Sports, vol. i, page 14.)--L.]
It may appear singular that in both the Old Testament and the New the dog was spoken of almost with abhorrence. He ranked among the unclean beasts. The traffic in him and the price of him were considered as an abomination, and were forbidden to be offered in the sanctuary in the discharge of any vow. [2]
One grand object in the institution of the Jewish ritual was to preserve the Israelites from the idolatry which at that time prevailed among every other people. Dogs were held in considerable veneration by the Egyptians, from whose tyranny the Israelites had just escaped. Figures of them appeared on the friezes of most of the temples, [3] and they were regarded as emblems of the Divine Being. Herodotus, speaking of the sanctity in which some animals were held by the Egyptians, says that the people of every family in which a dog died, shaved themselves--their expression of mourning--and he adds, that "this was a custom existing in his own time." [4]
The cause of this attachment to and veneration for the dog is, however, explained in a far more probable and pleasing way than many of the fables of ancient mythology. The prosperity of Lower Egypt, and almost the very subsistence of its inhabitants, depended on the annual overflowing of the Nile; and they looked for it with the utmost anxiety. Its approach was announced by the appearance of a certain star--SIRIUS. As soon as that star was seen above the horizon, they hastened to remove their flocks to the higher ground, and abandoned the lower pastures to the fertilizing influence of the stream. They hailed it as their guard and protector; and, associating with its apparent watchfulness the well-known fidelity of the dog, they called it the "dog-star," and they worshipped it. It was in far later periods and in other countries that the appearance of the dog-star was regarded as the signal of insufferable heat or prevalent disease.
One of the Egyptian deities--Anubis--is described as having the form and body of a man, but with a dog's head. These were types of sagacity and fidelity.
["Who knows not that infatuate Egypt finds Gods to adore in brutes of basest kinds? This at the crocodile's resentment quakes, While that adores the ibis, gorged with snakes! And where the radiant beam of morning rings On shattered Memnon's still harmonious strings; And Thebes to ruin all her gates resigns, Of huge baboon the golden image shines! To mongrel curs infatuate cities bow, And cats and fishes share the frequent vow!"
Juvenal, 'Sat. xv'.--Badham's Trans.--L.]
In Ethiopia, not only was great veneration paid to the dog, but the inhabitants used to elect a dog as their king. He was kept in great state, and surrounded by a numerous train of officers and guards. When he fawned upon them, he was supposed to be pleased with their proceedings: when he growled, he disapproved of the manner in which their government was conducted. These indications of his will were implicitly obeyed, or rather, perhaps, dictated.
[Among the many strange and wonderful things mentioned by Pliny as being discovered in Africa, is a people called Ptoembati or Ptremphanae, whose principal city is Aruspi, where they elect a dog for their king and obey him most religiously, being governed entirely by the different motions of his body, which they interpret according to certain signs. (See Pliny, lib. vi, c. xxx.)--L.]
Even a thousand years after this period the dog was highly esteemed in Egypt for its sagacity and other excellent qualities; for, when Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new sect in Greece, and at Croton, in southern Italy, he taught, with the Egyptian philosophers, that, at the death of the body, the soul entered into that of different animals. He used, after the decease of any of his favourite disciples, to cause a dog to be held to the mouth of the dying man, in order to receive his departing spirit; saying, that there was no animal that could perpetuate his virtues better than that quadruped.
It was in order to present the Israelites from errors and follies like these, and to prevent the possibility of this species of idolatry being established, that the dog was afterward regarded with utter abhorrence among the Jews. [5] This feeling prevailed during the continuance of the