SPORTING AND GUARD DOGS 



Tibetan mastiff, too, has proved itself difficult to acclimatize 

 in certain foreign countries, and is unable to bear the heat of 

 summer in North China. It appears likely that a foreign 

 mastiff race, possibly Mongol, was originally imported into 

 Tibet, and at that altitude was developed into a breed of size 

 and weight suitable for its uses. Research in Tibet itself 

 can alone furnish sound evidence upon the subject. Whether 

 the Tibetans have bred a dog as large as possible with a view 

 to securing some beast analogous to the dog-lion of their 

 scriptures is a matter which may reward inquiry. Buddha 

 was first preached in Tibet about A.D. 632. The Chinese 

 remarked of the early Tibetans that they were accustomed to 

 sacrifice " sheep, dogs, and monkeys." * This race of dogs is 

 known to be widely distributed throughout Tibet. Ac- 

 cording to Rockhill,f mastiffs are rare in Eastern Tibet. 

 Pratt states that the best specimens round Tatsienlu come 

 from the Deggi district. Rockhill figures a mastiff which he 

 describes as of Punaka stock. J Ramsay says that pure 

 mastiffs are procurable only in Lhasa, very handsome and 

 costly to purchase. 1 1 



During the seventeenth century Tibetan mastiffs were not 

 well known to the potentates of the East, and could not have 

 been exported to them, for they, and especially the Shah of 

 Persia, prized exceedingly such mastiffs as they could procure 

 from England through the East India Company. 



In 1614 the Company's representatives at the Court of 

 the King of " Ajmere " wrote that all the dogs sent by King 



* Rockhill, " Life of Buddha," p. 204. 



f Journal R. Asiatic Soc., 1891, pp. 244 et seq. 



j " Explorations in Mongolia and Thibet," Rockhill. 



" Western Thibet, Lahore," 1890, p. 33. 



|| Compare in Nain Sing's description of his visit to the Thok Jalung gold mines : 

 " At the door of the tent was tied one of those gigantic black Lhasa dogs, of a breed 

 which Nain Sing at once recognized by his deep jowl and white chest-mark." " Tibet 

 the Mysterious," by Sir Thomas Holdich, p. 241. 



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