510 DOGS USED TIT DRAUGHT. 



A. very well informed traveller, M. Giesecke, who resided 

 BIX years in Greenland, assured me that the dogs of the 

 Esquimaux, which pass their lives in the open air, and bury 

 themselves in winter beneath the snow, do not bark, but 

 howl like wolves.* 



The practice of eating the flesh of dogs is now entirely 

 unknown on the banks of the Orinoco ; but as it is a 

 Tartar custom, spread through all the eastern part of Asia, 

 it appears to me highly interesting for the history of nations 

 to nave ascertained that it existed heretofore in the hot 

 regions of Guiana and on the table-lands of Mexico. I 

 must observe, also, that on the confines of the province 

 of Durango, at the northern extremity of New Spain, the 

 Comanches have preserved the habit of loading the backs 

 of the great dogs that accompany them in their migrations, 

 with their tents of buffalo-leather. It is well known that 

 employing dogs as beasts of burthen and of draught is 

 equally common near the Slave Lake and in Siberia. I 

 dwell on these features of conformity in the manners of 

 nations, which become of some weight when they are not 

 solitary, and are connected with the analogies furnished 

 by the structure of languages, the division of time, and 

 religious creeds and institutions. 



We passed the night at the island of Cucuruparu, called 

 also Playa de la Tortuffa, because the Indians of TJruana 

 go thither to collect the turtles' eggs. It is one of the 

 best determined points of latitude along the banks of the 

 Orinoco. I was there fortunate enough to observe the 

 passage of three stars over the meridian. To the east of 

 the island is the mouth of the Cano de la Tortuga, which 

 descends from the mountains of Cerbatana, continually 

 wrapped in electric clouds. On the southern bank of the 

 Cano, between the tributary streams Parapara and Oche, 



occur in the history of mute dogs, and dogs destitute of hair, the 

 "Views of Nature/' Bohn's edition, p. 85. 



* They sit down in a circle j one of them begins to howl alone, and 

 the others follow in the same tone. The groups of alouate monkeys 

 howl in the same manner, and among them the Indians distinguish "the 

 leader of the band." It was the practice at Mexico to castrate the muta 

 dogs, in order to fatten them. This operation must have contributed t 

 alter the orga of the voice. 





