102 The Irish Naturalist. 



Rev. Edward Terry, Chaplain to Sir T. Roe, relates that in the 

 present sent to Court, as above referred to, English and Irish 

 dogs were included; but as only two out of eight arrived safely,it 

 was for that reason that the Emperor desired more. He says : 



" In the year I went to India, the merchants here (as from the King of 

 England in whose name they sent all their presents), amongst many 

 other things then seut the Mogul some great English mastiffs and some 

 large Irish greyhounds, in all to the number of eight, dispersed in our 

 several ships ; one of these high-spirited mastiffs in our voyage thither, 

 upon a day seeing a great shoal or company of porpoises, mounting up 

 above the waves, and coming toward that ship wherein he was, suddenly 

 leaped overboard to encounter with them, before any did take notice 

 of that fierce creature to prevent that engagement, wherein he was 

 irrecoverably lost, the ship then having such a gale of wind, that she 

 could not suddenly slack her course, whereby that poor creature might 

 have been preserved. Another, one of the Irish greyhounds, had his 

 head shot off in our sight. The mange was the destruction of four more 

 of them, only two of the mastiffs came alive to East India, and they were 

 carried up each in a little cart, when I went up to the Ambassador (at 

 Agra) that he might present them to the Mogul." 1 



He then describes how one of them broke loose and attacked 

 an elephant. 



Another Chaplain, the Rev. J. Ovington, who made a voyage 

 to Surat in the} r ear 1689, relates that 



"A couple of Irish Wolf dogs were so prized in Persia, that they were 

 taken as a welcome and admired present by the Emperor (Shah) himself. 

 Two more of which (which were given to me by the Earl of Inchequin 

 when we put into Kingsale {sic) after the voyage) I disposed of to the 

 East India Company, who despatched them in their ships immediately 

 to the Indies, to be there bestowed on some of the Eastern Courts." 2 



He then relates, as an example of the value set upon 



European dogs, how a combat between the armies of two 



nobles, in consequence of a dispute as to the ownership of an 



English mastiff, was narrowly avoided by a reference to the 



English president who decided the merits of the respective 



claims. 



1 A Voyage to East India. Loudon, 1777, p. 140. 

 3 A Voyage to Suratt. London, 1696. 



