ARCTIC AND OTHER DRAUGHT DOGS. 



529 



so often crossed, his facility, noticeable even 

 in imported specimens of his kind, in picking 

 the flesh from a fish as cleanly as if the bones 

 had been scraped by a surgical instrument. 

 One wonders if dogs bred in civilisation 

 would lose this facility. They are irregular 

 in their feeding, and are content if they get 

 a good meal thrice a week, and for lack of 

 better food they will devour almost anything, 

 from a chunk of wood to a coil of tar rope, 

 their own leather harness, or a pair of 

 greasy trousers. In the severest Arctic 

 weather they do not suffer from the cold, 

 but they are subject to diseases uncommon 

 in civilised kennels. Paralysis of the legs, 

 and convulsions, are deplorably frequent, 

 but the worst complaint is the epidemic 

 madness which seems to attend them during 

 the season of protracted darkness. True 

 rabies are unknown among the Eskimo and 

 Indian dogs, and no one bitten by an afflicted 

 dog has ever contracted the disease. 



Characteristic of the Eskimo dog is the 



MR. H. C. BROOKE'S FAMOUS ESKIMO 



ARCTIC KING. 



fact that each team has its king, who is 

 not always the strongest, but usually the 

 most unscrupulous bully and tyrant. In 

 North Greenland a marriage between a dog 

 and a bitch of this breed is binding for life. 

 They are monogamous, and any interference 

 with the sanctity of the marriage tie results 

 in a fight to the death. 



The ordinary load taken over good ground 

 by a team of six Eskimo dogs is 800 lb., 

 at a rate of seven miles an hour. The speed 

 necessarily-depends upon the ground, the 

 weight of the sledge, and the condition of 

 the dogs. Kane was carried for seven hundred 

 miles at a rate of fifty seven miles a day, but 

 the record speed of a dog sledge was made 

 in the rescue of a sailor in Lieutenant 

 Schwatka's expedition. The man was seen 



WEST SIBERIAN (OSTIAK) SLEDGE DOG. 



IMPORTED WITH OTHERS FOR ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



Photograph by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S. 



at a distance of ten miles across an 

 ice-covered bay, just before nightfall. 

 To leave him there involved his death 

 from frostbite, and two Eskimo na- 

 tives with a double team of forty 

 dogs were sent to fetch him. The 

 runners were " iced " and the men 

 armed with knives to cut adrift any 

 dog who might lose his footing, and 

 be dragged to death, for there was no 

 stopping when once started. They did the 

 ten miles in twenty-two and a half minutes. 

 Probably the dogs employed for draught 

 in Northern America are generally more 

 expert at their work than those used by the 

 Arctic explorers. The Hudson Bay hauling 

 dogs have been known to do more than 2,000 



