572 NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS. 
earliest, in which we cannot trace him as more or less the friend 
and ally of the human race. Along with the bull, the ram, and 
the goat, his companions in servitude, we find him represented not 
only as a sign in the heavens, but honoured by a place in either 
hemisphere, first beneath the feet of the southern Orion, and again 
more northerly as indicating Sirius, the brightest of the fixed stars, 
the heliacal rising of which, corresponding to the full swelling of 
the Nile, marked the commencement of the Ethiopian and Egyptian 
year. His form is exhibited on the most ancient monuments of 
human art, in the sombre excavations of the early Indians, the 
mysterious chambers of the great Nilotic sepulchres, the now ruined 
glories of Persepolis. He was not only sculptured, but consecrated, 
sacrificed, even adored, by many nations, and forms a frequent 
feature in the mythological systems of ancient Greece and Rome. 
But one remarkable exception occurred in early times, which has 
no doubt materially affected the condition of many of the existing 
canine races over a large surface of our globe. The worship of 
the dog was interdicted to the Jews, under the most dreadful 
denunciations; he was proclaimed to be unclean; and even the 
price which might be obtained for him was classed with the wages 
of sin, and was not to pollute the temple of the living God*. 
“The people of this family,” observes Professor Low, “adhering 
to the letter of their stern laws amidst all the fortunes of their 
unhappy race, even now entertain much of their ancient feelings 
towards this gift of Providence. Nay more, the Arabs, taught by 
an impostor, who derived much of what he taught from Jewish 
usages, have conceived something of the same feelings towards 
this creature. But the Arabs cannot dispense with the services of 
the dog amid their own wild deserts of sand, and much less when 
they have passed beyond them ; and all the restraints of supersti- 
tion have been unable to prevent the freest use of the dog in the 
countries to which the Arabian faith has extended. Yet every- 
where, in countries of Mohammedans, the dog is regarded as 
something unhallowed and unclean. The true believer, indeed, 
will not shed the blood of the dog, but he will not afford him the 
shelter of his dwelling, nor admit him to that companionship for 
which Nature has fashioned him. Hence, in Mohammedan coun- 
tries, the dog rarely assumes that docility which he elsewhere 
possesses ; and hence much of that multiplication of unowned dogs 
in eastern towns, which live on garbage, and share with the hyaenas 
and vultures the task of removing impurities. This, indeed, is 
* The student of Scriptural Zoology will no doubt also bear in mind the 
fact, that while in the Sacred records frequent mention is made of nets and 
snares, and of the pursuit and capture of wild animals, there is no allusion 
throughout the whole of the Jewish history to the use of dogs in hunting. 
