DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



little more pleasing. " There is nothing striking, nothing 

 pleasing in its appearance. The inhabitants are begrimed 

 with dirt and smut. The avenues are full of dogs, some growl- 

 ling and gnawing bits of hide which lie about in profusion 

 and emit a charnel-house smell ; others limping and looking 

 livid ; others ulcerated ; others starved and dying and pecked 

 at by ravens, some dead and preyed upon." 



Das deals with the treatment of hydrophobia in Tibet. 

 His remarks are quoted as an interesting comment on the 

 superstitious medical practice which is, no doubt, current in 

 Tibet at the present day, and is only now losing ground in 

 China where in Yunnan Province a teaspoonful of tin-filings 

 and a similar quantity of copper-filings mixed daily in a dog's 

 food are considered as a sovereign protection against rabies 

 a custom no more irrational than the English use of a hair of 

 the dog that bit, or the Arab appeal to sympathetic magic in 

 seeking to cure hydrophobia by use of the head of a dog burnt, 

 reduced to ashes, and kneaded with vinegar. 



" The poison of a white rabid dog with red, flushed nose 

 affects at all times ; that of a red or brown dog is more 

 dangerous when one is bitten at midday, midnight, or sunrise ; 

 that of a parti-coloured dog, between 8 a.m. to i p.m. ; of 

 spotted ones at 9 p.m. or at twilight ; of iron-grey ones at 

 night or dawn ; and that of a yellow rabid dog is sure to be 

 fatal when one is bitten at dusk or 9 a.m. The baneful 

 effects of this dangerous malady break out seven days after 

 the bite of a white dog, one month after that of a black dog, 

 1 6 days after that of a parti-coloured, 26 days after that of an 

 ash-grey, from one month to ~j\ months in the case of a red, 



from the North and settles upon the carcase in the shape of a fly." " Antiquities of 

 Afghanistan," p. 163, Wilson. 



" When either the yellow dog with fair eyes, or the white dog with yellow ears, is 

 brought there then the Drug Nasu flies away to the regions of the North." Zend 

 Avesta, Fargard, viii, 3. 



