INDIAN PARIAH DOGS. 
85 
that neighbours should not be friends, came and lay in our path 
one morning as we were going to cutcherry, and raised his 
forepaws towards us as we passed, thereby denoting his willing- 
ness to be on good terms with us. We responded by stroking 
him gently with a cane, and his delight showed itself in the 
wagging of the curled up tail and a series of ungainly capers. 
Our friend then began to associate with our own house dogs, 
and, which is curious, to copy their ways. He is a big dog, and 
could have made a mouthful of our little terriers, but he always 
treated them with respectful attention, either because of their 
gentlemanly ways, or through consciousness of his lower status. 
Doubtless, too, he imitated our dogs with a view to obtain our 
better and more cordial opinion of him. But his imitation could 
hardly be termed thorough, for though he learned to take a 
biscuit in a well-bred way, and eyen once went for a mouse, he 
declined to be bathed. Your true pariah has the cat’s aversion 
to water without the cat’s instinct for keeping itself clean. 
Sometimes wc do not see our friend for days ; when he again 
turns up after one of his long absences we notice he is spare of 
flesh or bears red marks of battle on his striped coat, we know 
that he has returned from a raid into an enemy’s country, and 
that when the roving spirit comes on him he will not be kept at 
home for anything. The argument of a collar and chain has 
been tried, but without success. Domesticate a pariah as much 
as you like, he will never get over his aversion to these badges 
of servitude. From all that we have said they seem, indeed, 
to be hardly necessary, for the only difficulty that arises when 
you have got your pariah is how to get rid of him. If he elects 
to look after your place his motto becomes szu's, m/e ” ; 
and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would find it very 
hard to evict him. When a collar is put round his neck and he 
finds his liberty restricted to the length of his chain, he not 
unfrequently proceeds to howl in protest until the obnoxious 
band is removed. Some matter of fact people say that as the 
pariah’s progenitors led a free and unchained existence his 
aversion to the collar and chain is natural, being inherited — a 
bold theory that needs only to be mentioned to be dismissed, for 
it is obvious that if these faithful ugly awkward companions of 
our Mofussil life could explain, they would say that after they 
had given us their allegiance they could not but resent the 
employment of means to compel their service as an indignity 
and an insult to their loyalty. 
J. J. Platel, 
Shmidah, Jessor District, India. 
