26 TtE MATTItfF TYPE. 



judge of the mastiff I am unaware of the value of) was inclined 

 to think that the mastiffs sculptured on the Assyrian slabs 

 were of the Thibetian breed. But they do not accord in 

 peculiarities of feature with more modern specimens of that 

 breed, and I am inclined to think that it is far more likely 

 that these mastiffs sculptured on the Assyrian slabs etc. were 

 ,i breed which either existed in Assyria itself at that date or 

 else were introduced from Sarmatia, Albania, Hyrcania, or 

 Iberia, or some of those northern parts of Asia above' Armenia, 

 which we read ot having possessed dogs large, and courageous 

 enough to have successfully coped with the lion. Moreover 

 they are more like our English mastiff in type than the shaggy 

 mastiff of Thibet, which always seems more or less to have 

 been crossed with the sheepdog of the country. The mastiff 

 of Turkestan being a small dog, little better than could be 

 produced by crossing an English mastiff with a Scotch sheep- 

 dog. The Mongolian mastiff (of which Mrs. Assiter possessed 

 a beautiful specimen exhibited at Maidstone sho\v in 1870, 

 and of which animal I have a lock of hair) is a long woolly 

 coated animal, which seems characteristic of all the more 

 northern Asiatic animals. However, Col. H. Smith sr.ys " In 

 Persia, where the rulers were generally descended from tribes 

 of Central Asia, the princes possessed vast hunting packs, 

 as is mentioned by Xenophon. \Ye find Megasthenes (who 

 flourished about 300 B.C.) the first to notice the true mastiff 

 with drooping ears, these he suggests were most likely known 

 to the Greeks as the Candarides and Sen, the latter not being 

 Chinese but Afghans of Candah.'ir," but Col. H. Smith seems 

 to have gone too far north-west- -overlooking the Hyrcanian, 

 from whence in a north-eastern direction, has probably ever 

 been the cradle of the Asiatic mastiff. 



