170 THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 



through the waves. He could not, however, get close enough 

 to the vessel to deliver that with which he was charged, but 

 the crew joyfully made fast a rope to another piece of wood, 

 and threw it towards him. He saw the whole business in an 

 instant : he dropped his own piece, and immediately seized that 

 which had been cast to him, and then, with a degree of strength 

 and determination almost incredible, he dragged it through the 

 surf and delivered it to his master. A line of communication 

 was thus formed, and every man on board was rescued from a 

 watery grave."* 



" A Suffolk gentleman, being on an excursion with a friend, 

 and having a Newfoundland dog also accompanying him, the 

 animal soon became the subject of conversation -, when his 

 master, after a high eulogium upon his perfections, assured his 

 friend that the dog would, upon receiving the order, return and 

 fetch any article left at any distance behind. To confirm this 

 assertion, a marked shilling was put under a large square stone 

 by the road-side, having been previously shown to the dog. 

 The two friends then rode for three miles, when the dog received 

 his master's signal to return for the shilling he had seen put 

 under the stone. The dog turned back, and the gentlemen 

 rode on and reached home ; but, to their surprise and disap . 

 pointment, the hitherto faithful messenger did not return during 

 the day. It afterwards appeared that he had gone to the place 

 where the shilling was deposited, but the stone being too large 

 for his strength to remove, he had staid howling at the place, 

 till two horsemen, riding by, and attracted by his seeming 

 distress, stopped to look at him ; when one of them, alighting, 

 removed the stone, and seeing the shilling, put it into his 

 pocket, not at the time conceiving it to be the object of the 

 dog's search. The dog followed their horses for twenty miles, 

 remained undisturbed in the room where they supped, followed 

 the chambermaid into the bed-room, and secreted himself 

 under one of the beds. The possessor of the shilling hung his 

 breeches up by the bed-side ; but when the travellers were both 



* Essay on Humanity to Brutes. 



