86 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



current of a roaring sluice to save a small cur, mali- 

 ciously flung in. And, in another instance, of a 

 Pomeranian dog, we have often seen, belonging to 

 the master of a Dutch Bylander vessel : this crea- 

 ture sprang overboard, caught a child up and swam 

 on shore with it, before any person had discovered 

 the accident. The most remarkable of these is, 

 however, that of a Swiss Chamois hunter's dog, 

 who, being on the glaciers with an English gentle- 

 man and his master, observed the first approaching 

 one of those awful crevices in the ice to look down 

 into it, he began to slide towards the edge; his 

 guide, with a view to save him, caught his coat, 

 and both slid onward, till the dog seized his mas* 

 ter's clothes, and arrested them both from inevita- 

 ble death. The gentleman left the dog a pension 

 for life. 



A more remarkable presentiment of danger affect - 

 ing themselves, appears in the notice Captain Fitz- 

 roy gives of the earthquake at Galcahuasco, on the 

 20th February, 1835, where it appeared that all 

 the dogs had left the town before the great shock 

 which ruined the buildings was felt ; and, it seems, 

 that the same instinct was manifested at Con- 

 cepcion.* 



But, in constant fidelity, the dog offers the 

 highest models for our admiration and gratitude; 

 numberless are the cases where they have been 

 found on fields of battle, lying by, and watching 

 the bodies of their slain masters. In 1660, S. 

 * Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. 



