130 DOGS AND CATS IN EGYPT, 



predilection for cats, which they have imbibed from the example of their Prophet. 

 To the Turks, the soft and alluring manners of the cat, appear preferable to the 

 exquisite instinct, the docility, and the discerning- fidelity of the dog. Mahommed 

 had a great affection for the cat ; and it is related, that, the Prophet being- called 

 on some important and urgent business, preferred cutting off the sleeve of his robe, 

 to waking his cat, which laid upon it asleep. Nothing more, in course, was neces- 

 sary to bring these animals into the highest estimation, if even in other respects, 

 their extreme cleanliness, the lustre and polish of their fur, their mild and placid 

 disposition, their gentle and cautious caresses, had not rendered them amiable 

 creatures in the eyes of the Mussulmans. It may be here remarked, that the 

 people of the East have an additional motive for their affection to the cat, that 

 animal in their country, being in beauty, mildness, and caressing qualities, greatly 

 superior to its fellow creature of our Northern clime, although perhaps ours has the 

 advantage in point of real usefulness. 



A Cat may even enter a Mosque, and will be caressed as the favourite of the 

 Prophet, whilst a Dog, accidentally found there, would be instantly destroyed, as 

 a source of the vilest pollution. The poor dog, abandoned and persecuted by the 

 Turks, is compelled, against his nature, to avoid man, to whom it is his first 

 wish to devote his instinctive faculties, and the services of his whole life; in fact, 

 his natural instinct becomes reversed, and teaches him to shun all places where 

 Mussulmans are assembled, being assured by dreadful experience, that among 

 them, he would not only find neither friend to accompany, nor master to follow, but 

 would put himself into the power of his most determined enemies. 



In ancient Egypt, Cats were held in great veneration, but dogs in still greater. 

 They were both the objects of public mourning, and after death, distinguished 

 honours were paid to their memory. In the house where a cat died a natural 

 death, the inhabitants shaved their eyelids only ; but on the death of a dog, they 

 shaved their head and their w r hole body. Cats that died, were buried with most 

 pomp at Bubastis,&c\ty of lower Egypt. No person killing a dog or cat, even in- 

 voluntarily and by accident, under this miserable system, could escape capital 

 punishment : and it was pretended, these honours and prerogatives bestowed upon 

 animals, were not merely matter of fancy or caprice, but that their institutors had 

 a great political end in view, namely, preservation of the substance and the interest 

 of a whole people. They held it necessary to put under the protection of a religious 

 law, those animals, the defence of which against the prodigious multitudes of rats 

 and mice infesting Egypt, was absolutely indispensable. Thus it is in such a multi- 

 tude of instances, that fallacious superstition has been compulsively forced into 

 the place of reason and common sense. In the above account of the Dogs and Cats 

 of Egypt, we have consulted Mr. Dormer, and various other writers. 



Our capricious conduct in this country, towards Dogs and Cats, namely, the pre- 

 tended humanity, in more significant terms, gross cruelty, of turning them out to 



