668 THE DOG. 



riod which may be called historical, making use of the Dog, 

 as of other victims, in their bloody worship. He entered 

 into the mythological systems of Greece and Rome ; and even 

 in the superstition of the vulgar of Europe to the present 

 day, usages connected with the worship of the Dog may be 

 traced. One exception, and that a remarkable one, occurred 

 in early times, and has exercised a singular action on the 

 condition of the Dog over a great part of the world. The 

 worship of the Dog was interdicted to the Jews, with dread- 

 ful denunciations. He was proclaimed to be unclean ; and 

 even the price which might be received for him was placed 

 on a level with the wages of a harlot, and was not to pollute 

 the temple of the Living God. The people of this family, ad- 

 hering to the letter of their stern law amidst all the fortunes 

 of their unhappy race, even now retain much of their ancient 

 feelings towards this gift of Providence. Nay more, the 

 Arabs, taught by an Impostor, who derived much of what he 

 taught from Jewish usages, have conceived something of the 

 same feelings towards this creature. But the Arabs cannot 

 dispense with the services of the Dog amid their own wild 

 deserts of sand, and much less when they have passed be- 

 yond them ; and all the restraints of superstition have been 

 unable to prevent the freest use of the dog in the countries 

 to which the Arabian faith has extended. Yet everywhere, 

 in countries of Mohammedans, the Dog is regarded as some- 

 thing unhallowed and unclean. The True Believer, indeed, 

 will not shed the blood of the Dog, but he will not afford him 

 the shelter of his dwelling, nor admit him to that companion- 

 ship for which Nature has fashioned him. Hence, in Moham- 

 medan countries, the Dog rarely assumes that docility which 

 he elsewhere possesses ; and hence much of that multiplica- 

 tion of unowned dogs in Eastern towns which live on garbage, 

 and share with the hysenas and vultures the task of remov- 

 ing impurities. This, indeed, is due only in part to Moham- 

 medan feeling ; for we know that something of the same 

 kind existed from the earliest times in the countries of the 



