Beast and Man in India Part 12

A trippin' over tent-ropes when we've got the night alarm, We socks 'im with a stretcher-pole an' 'eads 'im off in front, And when we've saved 'is bloomin' life, he chaws our bloomin'

arm.

The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, The elephant's a gentleman, the baggage mule's a mule; But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said and done, 'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child in one.

O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd forsaken oont!

The 'umpy lumpy 'ummin'-bird a singin' where 'e lies, 'E's blocked the 'ole division from the rearguard to the front, An' when we gets 'im up again--the beggar goes an' dies!

'E'll gall an' chafe an' lame an' fight--'e smells most awful vile, 'E'll lose 'isself for ever if you let 'im stray a mile; 'E's game to graze the 'ole day long an' 'owl the 'ole night through, And when 'e comes to greasy ground 'e splits 'isself in two.

O the oont, O the oont, O the floppin' droppin' oont!

When 'is long legs gives from under, an' 'is meltin' eye is dim, The tribes is up be'ind us an' the tribes is out in front, It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites and crows for 'im.

So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind, An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind, O then we strips 'is saddle off, an' all 'is woes is past: 'E thinks on us that used 'im so, an' gets revenge at last!

O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin' bloatin' oont!

The late lamented camel in the water-cut he lies.

We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front, But 'e gets into the drinkin' casks, an' then, of course, we dies.

Through the humorous lilt of these lines you may perceive many facts, especially the mortality among camels in our Afghan campaigns. In that of 1878-1879, about 50,000 camels were paid for by the British Government. But this was in no wise the fault of the brutal Briton, for the beasts were deliberately sacrificed by their native owners, who were guaranteed compensation for their loss. It was easier to allow the camel to die than to toil after him over a difficult country. It is now laid down as an axiom of the Transport service that animals required to proceed beyond the bases, and to act with troops in the field, should be the property of the Government, while the transport of supplies within the bases should be mainly hired. But on the next pinch the chances are that the axiom will be disregarded. A history of the military services of the camel would be the history of Eastern wars. He has served and served well both as baggage cart and troop-horse, and whether from stupidity or courage is as stolid and unmoved under attack as were the British infantry squares at Waterloo.

Herodotus, Pliny, Livy, Diodorus, and Xenophon are quoted by Major Burn of the Intelligence Branch in his excellent official manual on Transport and Camel Corps. In modern campaigns camel corps were organised by Napoleon in Egypt, Sir Charles Napier in Sindh, by Carbuccia in Algeria, and during the Indian Mutiny the "Ninety-twa" Highlanders had a camel corps of 150 native drivers, and 155 well-bred camels on which sat 150 kilted Highlanders. Sir Charles Napier's Sindh camel corps seems to have been the most complete in design and equipment, and in every way worthy of that great soldier's genius. The principle on which it was based is the plainest of all the plain truths ignored by our system--that the transport is the most vital part of military matters, and should be organised with just as much care as a regiment. In an expedition for the capture of a robber chief in Sindh, Sir Charles Napier's camel corps travelled 70 miles during the night, captured the thief, and returned, thus accomplishing 140 miles in twenty-four hours. Feats of this kind, of course, were not continuous, and their bringing-off was due to the care with which the rest and upkeep of the animals were maintained. This splendid property organised in 1845 was allowed to die down, and no such efficient organisation existed in subsequent campaigns, where money, hastily spilled like water, purchased discomfort and sickness for the troops, and that tardy and confused movement of his ma.s.ses which breaks the heart of an anxious general.

As a rule, the management of camels should be left to Orientals, though the French say their men learned to imitate the Arab camel cries. Our Thomas Atkins is a poor ventriloquist, ill at outland tongues. Like his officers, too, he cherishes the ancient illusion, filtered down from book to book, about the extra water-tank stomach of the camel, and his power of going without water. As a plain physiological fact, the camel has no such chamber, his digestive arrangements are like those of the ox, but simpler, approaching the horse character; and, if he goes without water, it is only because he cannot get it. There are pouches in his stomach, which frequently after death are found to contain fluid; but that they are reservoirs pure and simple is doubtful, says Mr. J. H. Steel in his _Manual of the Camel_. "It is very certain that the parched traveller who cuts open his dying camel to obtain its water store will thus procure only a very little fluid of a temperature of about 90 Fahr., of a mawkish, sub-acid flavour and an unpleasant odour." He should be watered twice a day in the hot weather, and once in the cool season. It is true, of course, that he has been known to go dry for seven or eight days, but it was labour and sorrow to him. Also, although he can travel twenty miles a day, carrying 360 lbs. weight, he is capable of fatigue as other beasts are, and once out of condition does not regain his strength in less than six months. And in spite of his unfriendly and unsympathetic disposition, it is a fact that, like the rest of G.o.d's creatures, he is more tractable under kind treatment that when bullied and roughly handled. Of a man we sometimes say "he has an unfortunate manner," nor do we always mean it, for such a manner often shows the aggressive selfishness and ill-temper that command fortune and respect. The supercilious expression framed in the camel's lips, which disclose with savage threat the long upper teeth, denied by nature to other ruminants, and his curiously indifferent air, are real misfortunes to him.

We bow respectfully to the camel-tempered man of private life, but it is hard to be civil to a beast whose face is a sculptured sneer.

The long-shanked, cushion-footed creature is especially good at fording rivers where the bottom is sandy. A drove going across will sometimes make a ford practicable for horses, acting like a roller on a loose road, but a few yards of greasy clay will throw many a camel. A fair slope is not much of an obstacle, but a steep hill of slippery wet clay, up which a mule goes gaily, is a sad business for the camel. Nature has made his shoulder, chest, and fore-legs strong, but the attachments of the hind limbs are weak and ill-considered. So the beast is liable to dislocations of the hip in climbing, or, as the British soldier says, "he splits 'isself up." Some Afghan short-legged breeds are good climbers, but of most the Arab saying holds good: "Which is best for you, O camel, to go up hill or down? May G.o.d's curse rest on both wherever met, quoth the camel." None the less, at this moment long strings are pacing with heavy burdens up and down the hill roads to Kashmir, Simla, and Kabul.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAJPUT CAMEL GUNS]

Camels, like mules, can be used to carry field-pieces, the equipment of a gun being divided among three animals. The indigenous practice was to make the beast himself a gun-carriage, bearing a Zamburah (wasp), a piece like our old falconet or like the heavy swivel muskets sometimes seen in English armouries, intended for the tops of a ship or the stern sheets of a boat.

The saddle also carries a rider who holds the heavy wooden stock and fires the gun with a slow match. The lingering nature of this arrangement must in action have lent a lively interest to the evolutions of a gun camel, for there is always the chance that just at the critical moment the beast may sling round and point the gun at its friends. Another camel gun is a sort of _mitrailleuse_, carrying twenty-one barrels in a framework of iron-clamped wood. Both these contrivances are still in as much use as the brooding pax Britannica allows in Rajputana, especially at Oodeypore and Jeypore, and make a great figure in State processions when salutes are fired. The Sikhs had a great number of camel guns of the Zamburah type, and at the battle of Sobraon it is said that over 2000 were captured. Some of these still survive in the armoury at Fort Lah.o.r.e.

Besides his services as a slow-pacing pack animal and as a steed capable of covering long distances at a high speed, the camel has many uses unnoticed by Europeans. He is blindfolded in Sindh and made to go a mill-round, grinding flour or oil seeds; working sometimes in such a confined s.p.a.ce, one wonders how they got the huge beast in, or how they will get him out again. He takes the place of the ox at the plough and the well, and acts as water-carrier in parts of Rajputana, on the edges of the Indian desert and in the camel districts of the Punjab. On the Grand Trunk road to Delhi are wonderful double-storied wagons drawn by camels. These old-world contrivances go at the rate of about three miles per hour, and are like nothing so much as the cage wagons of travelling menageries. They are in effect iron cages intended originally as a protection against robbery. The pa.s.sengers are huddled together and seem to sleep most of the time, and, to do him justice, so does the driver. The most picturesque "property" of the Punjab Government house is a huge _char a banc_, to which is harnessed a team of four or six fine camels with leopard skin housings and gaily attired riders. The camel van will probably be run off the road by the railway, but modified versions of it must for long survive in the desert regions off the line of rail.

It ought to be unnecessary to say that while one camel is like another to an untrained European eye, there are in India, as in Arabia, carefully cla.s.sified breeds, though they are not distinctively branded with caste marks, as is the case in the West. One listens to this lore with respect, but it is not easily remembered, nor is it of much importance, save to the camel owner or the Government officer sent forth at tuck of drum to buy or hire all the good camels he can lay hands on. By common consent the very best of the animals of the plain are considered to be those of Bikanir and Jessulmir, Rajput States on the edge of the great Indian desert, where the hot dry air suits the austere Arab const.i.tution of the beast. But it has a wider range of variety than is generally thought, each suited to its _habitat_, until in the hills the slender, high-caste form becomes square, st.u.r.dy, and thickly covered with a coa.r.s.e, cold-resisting pelage. The two-humped Bactrian camel is prepared by nature to withstand a cold almost as keen and piercing as that the reindeer feels, and yet will breed with the one-humped camel of the burning plain. Signor Lombardini, an authority on cameline anatomy, finds a rudimentary second hump in the ordinary one-humped camel.

After the he-goat, a whole camel seems a large offering for the most pious person to make, but he still occasionally serves as a sacrifice. Colonel Tod wrote that the Great Mogul used to slay a camel with his own hand on the new year festival, and the flesh was eaten by the court favourites. He is certainly eaten, and they say camel in good condition much resembles beef. After his death his bones are valuable, being whiter and more dense than most other bones, and a fair subst.i.tute for ivory. But they are neglected except by the lac-turners of Dera Ismail Khan, who use them for the studs and ornaments with which they adorn their ware. Possibly some camel bones are picked by English turners and b.u.t.ton-makers out of the Indian bones now imported. It may not be generally known that the attention of traders has been recently drawn to the cattle remains that lie near Indian villages. Each hamlet has its Golgotha, where worn-out animals are left to die. Hitherto, only the vulture, the crow, and the jackal have visited these spots, after the leather-dresser has taken the skin of the last comer. But though it never occurred to the Oriental that they could be of any use, Western science, like the giant in the child's tale, grinds bones to make bread. So the village bone-heaps are swept up and shipped to Europe. Perhaps a day may come when the people, awaking to their value, will cry out that they have been robbed. The bone heaps will certainly be missed by the scientific Indian agriculturists of the future, but there is no way of keeping them in the country. Learned authorities on economic questions say it is a mistake to use customs duties with any beneficent intention, just as literary critics say it is bad art to write a story with a purpose, and both have some right on their side. Otherwise, in the interests of India, one would like to impose a heavy export duty on wild bird skins, feathers, and bones, and a crushing import duty on aniline dyes and Members of Parliament.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LEADING CAMEL OF A KAFILA (AFGHANISTAN)]

Camel trappings are not so gaudy in India as in Egypt or Morocco, where riding animals are bedizened in scarlet and yellow. They are in a different key of colour, belonging to a school of pastoral ornament in soberly-coloured wools, beads, and small white sh.e.l.ls, which appears to begin (or end) in the Balkans and stretches eastward through Central Asia into India, especially among the Biloch and other camel folk on our North-West frontier. Camel housings may be the beginning of the nomad industry of carpet weaving. It is perhaps not too fanciful to trace on the worsted neckband the original unit or starting-point of the carpets and "saddle-bags" which have given lessons to English upholsterers. There is not much room for variety in a narrow fillet with only black, brown, and dingy white as a colour scheme, but you may watch a long Kafila go curtseying past and find no two neck-bands quite alike in the arrangement of zig-zags, diamonds, bars, and squares. These bands, with more richly coloured rugs and saddle-bags, and the homely russet splendours of worsted cords, ta.s.sels, sh.e.l.ls, and beads, with which the leading camel is adorned, are wrought by women. Like more women's work, it is done at intervals. The English lady complains that her Turkoman or Biloch rug lies unevenly on her parquet floor, and does not reflect that the perverse "buckling" marks the times when camp was shifted to follow the pasturing flocks, and the loom with its unfinished carpet was rolled up to be staked anew with Oriental carelessness as to straightness. "Saddle-bags," said a London tradesman to me, "have had their day, they've got common." This sounded sadly, but they will not cease to be for all that.

CHAPTER XI

OF DOGS, FOXES, AND JACKALS

"Hev a dog, Miss!--they're better friends nor any Christian."

GEORGE ELIOT, _The Mill on the Floss_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SUBALTERN'S DOG-BOY]

That the dog has served for ages throughout the East as a byword of loathing and contempt is of itself no hanging matter so far as the real character of the animal is concerned, and need not surprise or shock the English dog-lover. For, like the sacred writings of the Hindus and Muhammadans, our own Holy Bible, from which we profess to take our rules of life, contains the same low estimate and has no hint of appreciation of canine character, no recognition of his services to man, no word of compa.s.sion for his fate. Yet Christians have learned and perfected the lore known to the a.s.syrian and the Greek of the varieties and qualities of dogs, and, following them rather than the ancient Hebrew, have come to love and cherish the unclean animal. The wonder is that the Oriental has stuck so servilely to the skirts of his Scripture and taken so much to heart the belated nonsense that Moslem and Hindu authorities have uttered in disparagement of one of the best of G.o.d's creatures. He ought to have found out for himself that the figurative expressions of orators, poets, and law-givers have but a local and temporary significance; but if you look closely you will find that for centuries he has most faithfully tried to take all that he has been officially taught _au pied de la lettre_, and has crystallised the metaphors of poetry and the rhetorical flights of law-givers into canons of conduct. The enormous difficulty of this task has, of course, driven both Hindu and Moslem to much hypocrisy and compromise, but on the whole their faith is greater than anything we know of in the West.

The official condemnation of the dog by Muhammadans, and the formal terms in which he is out-casted by Hindus, are too monstrous and sweeping to hold good, when one considers the friendly nature of the beast and the real claim he has on the grat.i.tude of mankind. But there are not many examples of human sympathy pa.s.sing the narrow bounds of a cruel law. The ingenious Mr. Pope has a much-quoted pa.s.sage about the poor Indian whose untutored mind leads him to hope that when admitted to the equal sky of heaven his faithful dog may bear him company. But ages before Mr. Pope lisped in numbers, and indeed before America was discovered, Asiatic poetry had created the hero Yudhishtira, who refused to enter heaven at all unless his dog might accompany him. Modern India, however, has for the most part forgotten Yudhishtira, and in these days the only dog admitted to the company of the G.o.ds is a cur that serves as the vehicle or _vahan_ of Bhairon, now one of the most popular of Hindu divinities. This deity bears a bottle of strong drink, in defiance of those shallow folk who claim all Hindus as total abstainers and Bands of Hope, and a staff which is vulgarly reckoned to be the _Kotwal_ or town magistrate of Benares. His semblance is that of a black or dark blue man, whose raiment is a cloth round his loins and a serpent round his neck; his dog is a black tyke of low degree, nor does the canine race appear to gain in popular esteem from his a.s.sociation with the G.o.d, unless the very vulgar saying: "If all the dogs go on pilgrimage to Benares, who will be left to lick the dishes clean?" is an obscure reference to his sacred character.

Muhammadans have granted in popular lore a place in Paradise to Khetmir, the dog of the seven sleepers, who has been suspected of being the same animal as Yudhishtira's hound by some scholars. But they follow the Bible in speaking of him in injurious terms as an expression for disgust and loathing, unclean by immemorial prescription. It is written that the angels of G.o.d will not cross the threshold of a house whereon there is even a hair of a dog. If a dog is known to have drunk out of a vessel, it must be washed in seven waters. (A Muhammadan cure for hydrophobia is to look down seven wells.) Neither by Hindu nor Muhammadan writer is ever a kindly word said in appreciation of the admirable sides of canine character. When he has a fair chance he is as faithful and zealous in service in India as elsewhere, but no one notices him. "A dog's death" is an Indian as well as a European phrase for a miserable ending, and it has a peculiar force in India; an idle babbler is said to have eaten a dog's brains, a hasty movement is a dog's jump, the hungry stomach is spoken of as a dog that must be quieted, and it is an ancient saying that though you imprisoned a dog's tail for a dozen years in a bamboo tube, it would still be crooked.

That it would probably be perfectly straight after such a process is an irrelevant physiological detail unworthy the attention of a poet or a proverbial philosopher. "What business has a dog in a mosque?" is a scornful snub to an intrusive person of low degree. The sons-in-law and other relatives of wealthy, high-caste Hindus who, under the patriarchal scheme of domestic life, live with their wives' families, are familiarly described in quite a long series of enumeration as household dogs. A sponger or parasite is a _tabaqi kutta_, a dish (licking) dog. And the Persian monosyllable for dog, "_Sag_," is often in a native mouth a more savage term of contempt than "_Suar_," pig.

A saying goes, "do not travel in the evening, the Raja and the dog are asleep in the morning"--and in the lawless days but lately past there was sense in the counsel. Of oppressive native subordinates they say: "Why should not a dog bite a defenceless poor man?" To an abusive underling: "Cur! it is not your mouth but your master's that barks." The messenger wears a scarf and bra.s.s badge, and is often a jack-in-office, so he is familiarly spoken of as a dog with a collar on. Another saying is based on an incident: "You ate the dawn meal, so you must fast." A Muhammadan during the Ramazan fast found that a dog had eaten the meal which may be lawfully taken before sunrise, and with these words he locked the creature up, and, conceiving himself released from obligation, he breakfasted and dined as usual. We say "Love me, love my dog"; the Oriental admits that if you are devoted heart and soul to a person, you may even take her dog into favour: "Even Leila's dog is dear to Majnun." This languishing hero is the accepted type of a devoted lover. The dog plays no great part in the story, and I suspect it is in respect of the proverb that a dog is generally introduced by native draughtsmen into the popular bazaar pictures representing these personages. The ordinance in the Code of Menu that certain out-caste tribes should possess no animals but dogs and a.s.ses has been a millstone round the necks of these admirable and most useful animals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUTCASTES (A BEGGING LEPER AND PARIAH DOGS)]

We say that one may as well hang a dog as give him a bad name, thereby admitting the possibility of a good one. But no such allowance seems to have been made for the Indian pariah dog. He has always been on the downhill slope of popular contempt, and it will be long before he can hope to rise. The n.o.ble potentialities of his character are ignored, he is discouraged by the distance at which he is kept, for he is never allowed to enter a house, nor to consort on intimate terms with man, the inventor of morals. Perhaps it is not too fantastical to say that when compared with the English dog the poor Indian outcast is a pagan, a creature without faith, or at least without that soul-saving reverence for authority which enn.o.bles character. Lord Bacon says that the master of a properly trained dog is the divinity of the animal who waits upon his will. The Indian pariah does not know the joy of adoration; he has no master, and is an atheist in spite of himself. Tainted with the worst of the philosophy to which he gave his name some centuries ago in Greece, he reveals more of the currish side of canine character than English dogs and dog lovers are aware of. He uncovers more of his teeth when he snarls--and he often snarls--than the civilised dog; he slinks off with inverted tail at the mere hint of a blow or a caress, and his shrill bark echoes the long note of the great dog-father, the wolf, and the poor cousin the jackal. In a fight he does not abandon himself to the delight of battle with the stern joy of the English dog, but calculates odds and backs down with an ign.o.ble care for his skin. In short, he is a _lendi_, a cur, a coward. We English call him a pariah, but this word, belonging to a low, yet by no means degraded cla.s.s of people in Madras, is never heard on native lips as applied to a dog, any more than our other word "_pie_." Like other words, both will be learned from us and incorporated in that wonderful pudding-stone conglomerate of language known as Urdu.

The pie-dog, pariah, or street dog, is usually rufous yellow, but all known dog tints occur, for creole colours now diversify the tawny aboriginal race. Chronic hunger is the central fact of his life, which is one long search for food, and his pastime is another long search for fleas. As a rule he owns himself, but he sometimes selects a master and always belongs to a place. "Why are you so lean, dog? I have to gather my dinner from nine houses."

He is supposed to be valuable as a scavenger, and it is certain that he mostly dines in the night, resembling in this respect his timid cousin the jackal, who usually slinks aside from offal heap or dead carca.s.s as he approaches. The jackal is accused of ghoulish propensities, favoured by the shallow graves dug for their kindred by Muhammadans, but the street dog, if strict truth were told, is almost as great a sinner. He is reported on good authority to frequent the burying-places where Hindus are cremated, and,--but I forbear. Stress of hunger alone leads him to dark deeds which forfeit his claim to human sympathy. It should be remembered in extenuation that he owes little or nothing to a cruelly indifferent humanity, and that he preserves, as we shall presently see, an innate friendliness which no neglect can quite eradicate. He is a street Arab, but he shows preferences for people as well as for places. He follows the cultivator afield and watches the gray bundle of cotton cloth slung to a branch and the huqqa left under a tree, but I doubt whether he would make any effective defence of them. When the frugal "nooning" of unleavened flap-jacks and b.u.t.ter-milk is eaten he wistfully awaits his share at a respectful distance. The children handle and play with him, and go to sleep by his side when tired of rolling in the dust, but when they grow up they cut his companionship.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAYFELLOWS]

Most Anglo-Indians have had an experience similar to that related by Bishop Heber in his journal of a sudden and unaccountable attachment on the part of a homeless pariah dog. A sc.r.a.p of food, a word of notice, or even a look from one accustomed to command dogs wakes a chord in the creature's nature, and he longs to acknowledge a master. There are many instances of street dogs becoming civilised in European hands, and some have become faithful companions and friends. But it is as dangerous for a dog of this kind to leave his kindred as for a high-caste Hindu to cross the sea. Canine caste laws are strict, and a dog from a strange clan venturing into the territories of another tribe is sure of a hot reception. A country story expresses this with pretty irony. Once upon a time a dog ran "all the way from the Ganges" (any long distance) in one day. "How on earth did you come so swiftly, O dog?" "By the kindness of my brethren," is the reply. He had been chivied and chased from village to village as an intruder. A dog who had left his place and family connections for a period could not return with safety. So the pariah is not reluctant to adopt a master without a cause. He is the victim of an implacable socialism, the slave of a sharp-toothed trade union. He would like regular meals, and for their unwonted sake is willing to submit to authority, but what would the other tykes say and do? So he resigns himself to thoughtless freedom, wherefore does his skull remain narrow, his form wolf-like, and his mental character timorous and suspicious; sudden in impotent rage, loud in complaint, and nocturnal in habit; with that strange and long-drawn sympathy with lunar influences which the dog of civilisation has partly learned to forget.

There are many dogs which have an air of vagabondage, but who are owned and in some sort cared for. Yet the general habit of the animal in India is to attach himself to a place rather than to a person. In Europe this trait is often the mark of a high and magnanimous nature, for there dogs are attached to regiments, fire brigades, and other bodies corporate, of which they form an almost essential part, belonging to no one individual, but enjoying a n.o.ble sense of comradeship with all. No such honour is allowed to the poor Indian dog. They say contemptuously of a parasite or time-server, the Serai (native inn) dog is friendly with everybody; and the washerman's dog furnishes a saying in universal use. The washerman has a house, but he takes his clothes to the river-bank or ghat to be washed, so of the dog who attends him they say, he belongs to neither house nor ghat.

This saying is commonly applied to idle artisans, gadding house-wives, and truant schoolboys. The washerman's dog stands for a person at a loose end, as the oilman's ox for a laborious man or woman. Mr. Quilp said of his dog that it lived on one side of the way and was generally found on the other.

An old gentleman in _Punch_ seeing at a railway station a cat without a tail, says to the porter,--"One of the celebrated Manx cats, I suppose?"

"No," replies the porter,--"2.30 express." At Indian railway stations dogs are often seen minus a leg or a tail; for in a country where even the railway men have not yet learned that it is dangerous to go to sleep with a head or a leg across the rails, it is scarcely to be wondered at if the dogs are sometimes caught napping. The mutilated member soon heals, and the animal hops cheerfully round the station and learns to meet every train regularly. On the long Indian journeys much food is taken by the pa.s.sengers, both Native and European, and there are many sc.r.a.ps. So the railway dog is becoming an inst.i.tution. On the "toy railway," as natives persist in calling the narrow gauge lines, the animals are rather tiresome, for a bound brings them into one's carriage and another takes them out with a cold fowl or a packet of sandwiches in their prompt mouths.

The one ritualistic observance in which the dog takes a part concerns neither Hindus nor Muhammadans, but only the Pa.r.s.ees. It is a practice of the sun-worshippers to bring a dog into the room where a Pa.r.s.ee is lying in the hour and article of death. This, I believe, is the prescribed form, but the practice seems to be to take the dog in to look at the corpse when the spirit has pa.s.sed away. The rite is as obscure in theory as in practice, and I have never heard or seen a satisfactory explanation of it.

The dog is more frequently eaten than we are apt to believe. In Hindu poetry, innocent low-caste folk are contemptuously spoken of as "dog-cookers." I am a.s.sured that there is some ground for the gibe at Sansis and other gypsy tribes,--"When the gypsies come in at one side of the town, the dogs file out at the other." There is a double reason for this retreat, for not only do the Sansis eat dogs, but being in their way sporting characters, they keep dogs of their own, and a dog with never so squalid a man for master is dreaded by the ownerless pariah. An ordinary Indian street dog weighs from twenty to thirty-six pounds, and if he were fed would probably be over forty pounds in weight. Carrion-eating tribes have no prejudices in the matter of food, and the lizard, the jackal, and the rat are favourite roasts. It is manifest that to stomachs of this hardihood a dog would furnish lordly dishes.

There is a nine-word saying among poor folk to express a dilemma, which indicates the possibility of dog's flesh being mistaken for that of the kid: "If I tell, my mother will be beaten, if I don't tell, my father will eat dog's flesh." The story is that a housewife cooked dog's flesh by mistake, and the small son of the house alone knew what manner of meat was in the pot--an awful weight on the mind of a Muhammadan child. It is by no means necessary, of course, for the currency or force of the saying, that it should be based on an actual incident, for a remote possibility or an impossibility serves just as well.

In some regions dogs are regularly eaten. The Nagas on the a.s.sam frontier have a partiality for a dog who has just been full fed with rice and milk.

He is hastily killed and cooked whole,--"_chien farci au naturel_." It may be that out-caste folk have more toothsome food than we know. It is not proved that the lizard, the crocodile, and the snake are uneatable; indeed, it is probable they are very good. Jackal and fox must be dry and hard, but the stew-pot may reduce them to succulence. Darwin dined on puma in South America and found it like veal. I once accompanied a little company of silent Bhils in a search for field-rats, which were dug out and captured with great dexterity,--plump brown and white creatures, fed on the best of the crops and doubtless of fine flavour; but I did not wait to see how they were cooked over a fire, the kindling for which was carefully borne by a young woman of the party, who had much ado to screen it from the wind blowing over the high downs of the Deccan.

In the foregoing paragraphs the academical or official view of the out-caste dog as regarded by respectable people has been treated. The picture is not pleasing, nor should it be completely convincing to those who know and like the animal. In spite of conventional prejudice the dog, as might be expected, has won his way to a better place than most Europeans know of. The habit of foul and indiscriminate feeding may disgust the Hindu; and the Muhammadan,--most conservative of races,--may cherish his ancient grudge, but both are learning that the dog of good caste is a useful companion and friend. The indigenous canine aristocracy is not large, but it exists. Among the best breeds are the hounds kept by the Banjaris--a caste of half gypsy carriers and traders, referred to elsewhere. These are large and stout animals marked by the Eastern tendency to greyhound form, and are prized both as watch-dogs and for the chase. The Rampur hound is a similar beast, much cherished by sporting Nawabs. English authorities seem to think the greyhound came to Europe from the East.

Persian greyhounds are imported and naturalised. Their coats are ragged and the forms lack symmetry, but some of these animals recall Sir Walter Scott's _Maida_ of beloved memory. The sheep dogs kept by the Himalayan shepherds are warmly spoken of by their owners, who say that when the mountain paths are hidden in mist, they are infallible guides. On the plains sheep-dogs are seen, but they have none of the dash or vivacity of the British collie, slouching along, head and ears down; companions rather than directors of the sheep. Often, indeed, they may be seen in the middle of the flock. The sulky Tibetan mastiff is a splendid watch-dog, supposed to be capable of killing and eating a thief, and he is sometimes seen in the plains, but his ferocity, ill-temper, and heavy coat will prevent him from becoming popular. The black-tongued, thick-furred Eskimo-looking animal, now a favourite in England, comes to India from Tibet over the hills, and the ordinary village dog of the Himalaya has a strongly-marked tendency to this bushy-tailed, fox-muzzled type. There are also among common pariahs some mongrel variations, including a creature like the turnspit. Bishop Heber, an observer of unusual quickness, was more struck by the variety of colour and breed in native dogs than the unity apparent to his successors, and asks, "Are they indigenous, or is it possible that their stock can have been derived from us?"

Although no Eastern writer has said much in favour of the dog, there are a few stories current among the people which testify to an appreciation of his faithfulness. A Punjab tale recalls the pitiful fate of Gelert over which so many English children have grieved. A Pathan gave a Hindu banker some money to keep for him and lent his dog to guard the banker's house.

One night the thieves came and the dog barked, trying in vain to rouse the sleeping usurer. Failing in this, the clever beast watched the thieves and saw where they hid the spoil. In the morning he led the banker to the spot, scratching the ground to show where to dig. The money was recovered, and the grateful banker tied a letter round the dog's neck and sent him to the Pathan. But the latter, being hasty and irascible, struck off the animal's head for deserting his post, finding too late by means of the letter that the poor beast had been faithful to his trust. Even the pariah dog enjoys some popular respect as a watch-dog.

British influence, however, is the main factor in a slow but indubitable revolution now taking place in favour of the dog. A modern philosophical writer says the British Empire in India is but "a romantic episode"

destined to pa.s.s away and leave no recognisable trace. This utterance would be worth respecting if trustworthy doc.u.ments existed on which so large a forecast could be reasonably based. But in the present state of our knowledge of the country, and of the tendencies of the popular mind, it can be nothing more than one of the superficial profundities of smart journalism. That the form which Indian political inst.i.tutions will eventually a.s.sume may differ materially from the intentions and antic.i.p.ations of those who have planted them is an elementary consideration beyond which no plain man will now care to travel. Whatever may be its results in a political sense, the "romantic episode" will leave a notable imprint on some physical aspects of the land. Traces of the Briton will long survive in the animal as in the vegetable world. The dog and the horse accompany us everywhere, for it is part of our insular vanity to declare that no other dogs or horses are half so good as ours. Packs of fox-hounds are regularly imported; the subaltern, the private soldier, and the civilian bring bull-dogs, mastiffs, and terriers of every degree. Spaniels, retrievers, and greyhounds accompany sportsmen; the great Danes are occasionally seen, while ladies bring such pets as Maltese, Skyes, Dandie Dinmonts, and dachshunds.