142 FROM MADEIRA TO THE BARRIER 



If we had been able to take the opinion of our dogs 

 on their existence in the tropics, they would prob- 

 ably have answered as one dog: Thanks, let us get 

 back to rather cooler surroundings." Their coats were 

 not exactly calculated for a temperature of 90 in the 

 shade, and the worst of it was that they could not change 

 them. It is, by the way, a misunderstanding to sup- 

 pose that these animals absolutely must have hard frost 

 to be comfortable; on the contrary, they prefer to be 

 nice and warm. Here in the tropics of course they had 

 rather too much of a good thing, but they did not suffer 

 from the heat. By stretching awnings over the whole 

 ship we contrived that they should all be constantly in 

 the shade, and so long as they were not directly exposed 

 to the sun's rays, there was no fear of anything going 

 wrong. How well they came through it appears best 

 from the fact that not one of them was on the sick-list 

 on account of the heat. During the whole voyage only 

 two deaths occurred from sickness one was the case of 

 a bitch that died after giving birth to eight pups which 

 might just as easily have caused her death under other 

 conditions. What was the cause of death in the other 

 case we were unable to find out ; at any rate, it was not 

 an infectious disease. 



One of our greatest fears was the possibility of an 

 epidemic among the dogs, but thanks to the care with 

 which they had been picked, there was never a sign of 

 anything of the sort. 



