BREEDS 233 



swimmer, who delights in breasting the breakers. 

 The deep, broad chest and the powerful loins 

 seem built to support a human being in the water. 

 Naturally, the Newfoundland, too, is celebrated in 

 legend and literature, and many marvellous tales 

 are told of his philanthropy and pluck. He is a 

 favourite shipmate of Canadian skippers, and they 

 spin many a yarn of how, when a hand had tumbled 

 overboard, the cabin dog was in the water before 

 the life-buoy. "Christopher North," who was a 

 poet and a wonderful prose writer, glorifies his 

 noble Bronte in the fanciful " Noctes Ambrosianae." 

 But as " Christopher " was the Professor Wilson 

 of the Edinburgh University, so Bronte really and 

 actually existed ; nor did his master — who lost him 

 by poison — exaggerate his heroic qualities. Wilson 

 was a great lover of the Newfoundland, and as 

 Bronte was the favourite of his middle age, Fro 

 was the friend of his boyhood. '^Christopher in 

 his Sporting Jacket " is worth reading as an auto- 

 biography of the writer's early exploits under 

 difficulties in fishing and shooting, and you will 

 hear how Fro had it out with a carter's mastif¥ 

 in Homeric combat, and how at peril of his own 

 life he saved a boy from drowning. I feel sure 

 that Fro was as real a personage as Bronte, for 

 though after many years his master seems to write 

 of him with tears in the eyes and a swelling 

 in the throat, yet he does not blink his faults. 

 Fro, as little quarrelsome as any of his kind, had 

 been egged on to that battle with the mastiff ; 



