316 ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES. 



ness, that at length, to fulfil a bet made, the dog was entrusted 

 alone with a mixed herd to take to this market, which he did 

 without the smallest mishap. Arrived at the end of his journey? 

 he drove the whole up the yard his master was accustomed to take 

 his cattle to ; and there he delivered them up to the person who 

 usually received them, by significantly barking at his door. What 

 more particularly marks the extraordinary sagacity of this animal, 

 is, that the track over which he had to take his charge was entirely 

 an open moor, studded in many parts with grazing flocks. When 

 these intercepted his progress, he has been seen to start forward, 

 and, having stopped his own drove, to chase the others to a dis- 

 tance, that he might proceed without interruption or risk of inter- 

 mixture. Satisfied of his ability and fidelity, he was repeatedly, 

 after the first essay, thus entrusted alone, when circumstances 

 rendered it inconvenient to the butcher to attend himself; and it 

 was stated that he never lost one. I had no opportunity myself 

 of seeing this dog, for a gentleman, hearing of his exploits, had 

 bought him ; but I purposely went over the ground he used to 

 travel, and visited the yard in Alston to which he used to drive 

 the cattle for delivery : and many persons with whom I used to 

 converse in Hexham, where I then resided, had seen him ; and 

 they all fully authenticated the facts as I have stated them. A 

 ^ery interesting account of similar properties in the tending of 

 cattle in two dogs of this kind is related by Mr. Hogg, the cele- 

 brated Ettrick shepherd, in BlackwoocCs Magazine^ and also in 

 Captain Browns Sketches and Anecdotes, 



The critical reader will probably be struck with a topographical 

 discordance between the engraved display and the descriptive 

 account in these illustrations of the qualities of the dog. The 

 dikes of Holland seldom present much rural beauty, and are not 

 often graced with impending foliage ; neither are fertile banks and 

 tall trees very commonly met with on the moors of the north ; but 



