THE GALLIC WAR DOG. 
89 
ration. The body of dogs sustained this undeserved disgrace with- 
out complaining ; it did not threaten the government to retire 
among the Yolsci — far from that ; and like Caleb of the Manor 
of Ravenswood, its devotion and fidelity increased with its losses. 
The horse treated thus would have passed over to the Arab. 
The hunting dog is often seen running before the soldiers, in 
company of the little boys, at the entrance of a regiment into the 
city. It is because the regiment is the hearth of friendship and of 
devotion — the two sentiments that vibrate most strongly in the 
heart of the dog : similis simili gaudet. The same reason explains 
the affection of the dog for infancy, the age of equality, of friend- 
ship, of candor. The spaniel has many troubles with the child on 
account of his long, lustrous, and silken ears, which the latter loves 
to pull ; but he has also many delights in regard to slices of bread 
and butter, and conformity of tastes. I should not be far from 
believing that there was much to be done for the colonization of 
Algiers by the organization of the dog, and especially by that of 
the township or commune. 
The dog aspires to battles like the horse ; he is intoxicated with 
the smell of powder, and goes into ecstasies of gayety at the sight 
of a gun. I had one in Africa who as willingly attacked the Arab 
as the hare, and who perished a victim of his passion for war. He 
was a charming animal — an admirable mixture of the brack and 
bull-dog; his ears had been cut, but in compensation he had a su- 
perb tail, that curled like a hunting-bugle. One day when a large 
party of Hadjouts had surprised us poaching toward the fra- 
grant border of the dark orange-masses of Allouya, just at the 
foot of the Atlas, and when the conversation in saltpetre grew 
warm, Bichebou — it was the name of my companion in arms — 
amused himself in playing the shuttle-cock between us and the 
enemy, running at each shot to see what we had killed. 
To this excusable vice of curiosity, the animal united, alas ! that 
of holding too fast to his master’s game, and of having a hard 
tooth. It happened then that an Arab chief, superbly mounted, 
fell in the direction of my piece ; the intrepid Bichebou thought 
his honor at stake in fetching him to me. Perhaps success might 
have crowned the attempt with a dead enemy, but this one was 
