24 FIRST DIVISION OF THE 



flesh served up with that of the hare and fox. Virgil recommends that 

 the fatted dog should be served up with whey or butter, and Dioscorides 

 the physician says that they should be fed on the whey that remains after 

 the making of cheese. 



Before Christianity was established among the Danes, on every ninth 

 year at the winter solstice, a monstrous sacrifice of 99 dogs was effected. 

 In Sweden the sacrifice was still worse. On each of 9 successive days, 

 99 dogs were destroyed. This sacrifice of the dog, however, gave way to 

 one as numerous and as horrible. On every 9th year, 99 human victims 

 were immolated, and the sons of the reigning tyrant among the rest, in 

 order that the life of the monarch might be prolonged.* 



On the other hand, the dog was frequently the executioner ; and, from an 

 early period, whether in the course of war or the mock administration of 

 justice, thousands of poor wretches were torn to pieces by animals trained 

 to that horrible purpose. 



Many of the Indians of North America, and almost of the present day, 

 are fond of the flesh of the dog. 



Captain Carver, in his Travels in North America in 1766, 1767, and 

 1768, describes the admission of an Indian into one of the horrible socie- 

 ties of that country. " The dishes being brought near to me," says he, 

 " I perceived that they consisted of dog's flesh, and I was informed that 

 at all their grand feasts they never made use of any other food. The 

 new candidate provides fat dogs for the festival, if they can be procured 

 at any price. They ate the flesh ; but the head and the tongue were 

 left sticking on a pole with the front towards the east. When any 

 noxious disease appeared among them, a dog was killed, the intestines 

 were wound between two poles, and every man was compelled to pass 

 between them." 



The Nandowepia Indians also eat dog's flesh as an article of luxury, 

 and not from any want or scarcity of other animal food ; for they have the 

 bear, buffalo, elk, deer, beaver, and racoon. 



Professor Keating, in his interesting work on the expedition to Peter's 

 River, states that he and a party of American officers were regaled in a 

 large pavilion on buffalo meat, and tepsia, a vegetable boiled in buffalo 

 grease, and the flesh of three dogs kept for the occasion, and without any 

 salt. They partook of the flesh of the dogs with a mixture of curiosity 

 and reluctance, and found it to be remarkably fat, sweet, and palatable, 

 divested of any strong taste, and resembling the finest Welsh mutton, but 

 of a darker colour. So strongly rooted, however, are the prejudices of 

 education that few of them could be induced to eat much of it. 



The feast being over, great care was taken to replace the bones in their 

 proper places in the dish, after which they were carefully washed and 

 buried, as a token of respect to the animals generally, and because there 

 was the belief among them that at some future time they would return 

 again to life. Well-fattened puppies are frequently sold ; and an invitation 

 to a feast of dog's meat is the greatest distinction that can be offered to a 

 stranger by any of the Indian nations east of the Rocky Mountains. 



As a counterpart to much of this, the ancient Hyrcanians may be men- 

 tioned, who lived near the Caspian Sea, and who deemed it one of the 



Histoire du Chien, p. 200. The Voyage of Dumont d'Urville, vol. ii. p. 474. 



