A Dog in Exile. 6 1 



upland, and that this was the result. For three 

 or four days they remained inactive, sleeping the 

 whole time, except when they limped to the kitchen 

 to be fed. But day by day they improved in con- 

 dition ; their scratches healed, their ribbed sides 

 grew smooth a ad sleek, and they recovered from 

 their lameness ; but scarcely had they got well be- 

 fore it was discovered one morning that they had 

 vanished. They had gone off during the night to 

 hunt again on the uplands. They were absent two 

 nights and a day, then returned, looking even more 

 reduced and miserable than when I first saw them, 

 to recover slowly from their hurts and fatigue ; and 

 when well again they were off once more ; and so it 

 continued during the whole time of my visit. These 

 hounds, if left to themselves, would have soon 

 perished. 



Another member of this somewhat heterogeneous 

 canine community was a retriever, one of the hand- 

 somest I have ever seen, rather small, and with a 

 most perfect head. The extreme curliness of his 

 coat made him look at a little distance like a dog 

 cut out of a block of ebony, wifch the surface carved 

 to almost symmetrical knobbiness. Major that 

 was his name would have lent himself well to 

 sculpture. He was old, but not too fat, nor in- 

 active ; sometimes he would go out with the other 

 dogs, but apparently he could not keep up the pace, 

 as after a few hours he would return always alone, 

 looking rather disconsolate. 



I have always been partial to dogs of this breed; 



