THE BLOOD-HOUND. S2o 



land at all at the present day ; nor is this a matter 

 of regret, as, unlike the rest of his species, his cha- 

 racter is said to be that of decided enmity to man. 

 Strabo describes an attack upon the Gauls by these 

 animals, and likewise says they were purchased in 

 Britain by the Celtse, for the purposes of war, as 

 well as those of the chase ; but it is doubtful whe- 

 ther the most savage of this race would devour man 

 without being trained to it, which we know that 

 they were on a late horrible occasion, when, as 

 vStated in Rainsford's History/ of St. Domingo^ they 

 were fed upon blood, and a figure representing a 

 negro, containing blood and entrails of beasts, was 

 the object they were led to pursue. In the West 

 Indies, however, the blood-hound, under proper con- 

 trol, has been found useful in tracino; runaway ne- 

 groes, as the sluth-hound of the Scotch was early 

 applied to discover the haunts of robbers ; and to 

 the same purpose also on the confines of England 

 and Wales, where the borderers preyed on the 

 flocks and herds of their neiglibours, whenever an 

 opportunity offered. Of deer- stealers, who were so 

 numerous a century or two ago, they were likewise 

 the terror ; and well might they have been such, 

 for when once fairly laid upon the foot of one of 

 those daring depredators, they seldom failed to hunt 

 up to him. But it is in the history of civil wars 

 of our own country that blood -hounds are placed in 

 the most conspicuous light, particularly as avail- 

 able to the operations of Wallace and Bruce ; and 

 the poetical historians of the two heroes allude to 

 their services to their masters, as well as to the 



