174 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



It looked like a slippery place, and, sure enough, down 

 in the gully, some forty feet below the road, lay the 

 carcass of a big mule, half buried in debris and sur- 

 rounded by a swarm of tramp dogs. They had just 

 begun their feast, and most of them were evidently in 

 need of it : there were about twenty of them, two of the 

 youngsters with a faint resemblance to half-grown shep- 

 herd-dogs, but all the rest of a more than wolfish lean- 

 ness. Famine never reduces the body of a wolf beyond 

 a certain point; his chest-bones make him look stout 

 in spite of his starved belly ; but the skeleton of a dog 

 seems to shrink together with his bowels : some of the 

 tramps in the gully looked as if their ribs had been 

 strapped back upon their backbones, "all legs and 

 spine," like spider-monkeys. The shrinking of the lips 

 had bared their teeth and gave them an unspeakably 

 savage appearance whenever they leered at us with their 

 deep-set eyes. Something or other seemed to excite 

 them, and, looking around, I saw our friend the mastiff 

 standing at the very edge of the ravine and looking 

 down with a sort of pensive interest. " That's what 

 folks come to who lose their masters," he might think 

 to himself as he gazed upon the hungry tramps. But, 

 while he gazed, one of the muleteers approached him 

 from behind, lifted his foot, and in the next moment the 

 mastiff's reflections were cut short by a kick that sent 

 him head over heels through the air into the abyss be- 

 low. What we call presence of mind is often nothing 



