108 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



formerly in Europe with the brachet. This figure 

 we are inclined to regard as representing the Ely- 

 mean dog, perhaps first introduced into Egypt by 

 the shepherd conquerors, or brought home by Sesos- 

 tris after his Asiatic expedition to the Oxus. 



Although there is little doubt, that the Braque 

 of the French, and its diminutive Brachet of the 

 old English romances, and llachet of the Scots, is 

 also the Brae, or Breac, of the British Celts, it 

 may be questioned whether that race was the same 

 we now call the hound and beagle. Mr. Pennant 

 thinks the beagle is described by Oppian under the 

 name of Agasseus ; but we take 



Crooked, slender, rugged, and full eyed, 



to be, as well as what follows concerning the powers 

 of scent, more applicable, on the whole, to a native 

 terrier. The word being Celtic, and designating a 

 spotted species, as it would appear, of three colours. 

 There is a singular coincidence in the oldest Cinga- 

 lese tales, of the Ceylonese Buddhists, who narrate 

 a Mythus respecting their first arrival, wherein a 

 dog of three colours performs a conspicuous part ; 

 and, in the romance of Sir Tristrem and the Bele 

 Ysonde, where another three-coloured dog, evi- 

 dently typifying some druidical sect, is equally pro- 

 minent. For although these, and other romantic 

 episodes of the round table, appear at present in a 

 form which they acquired in the eleventh and twelfth 

 centuries, they are all extracted from mythological 



