168 
DOG. 
ble by their assiduity, and sometimes beneficial by 
a seasonable intimation given to their master in his 
slumbers. An instance which occurred near Ham- 
mersmith, in the year 1760, will place their use 
in this respect in a very strong light. While a 
man of the name of Richardson, a waterman of 
that place, was sleeping in his boat, the vessel broke 
from her moorings, and was carried by the tide 
under a west-country barge. Fortunately for the 
man his dog happened to be with him ; and the 
sagacious animal awaked him by pawing his face, 
and pulling the collar of his coat, at the instant the 
boat was filling with water ; he seized the oppor- 
tunity, and thus saved himself from otherwise in- 
evitable death. 
The Kamtschatkans, Eskimaux, and Greenland- 
ers, strangers to the softer virtues, treat these poor 
animals with great neglect. The former, in the 
summer season, when the dogs are no longer of 
service, turn them loose to seek a living for them- 
selves, and care no more about them till the ap- 
proach of winter ; when they are recalled to their 
usual confinement and labour. Mr. Pennant ob- 
serves, that from October till the spring they are 
fed with nothing but fish bones and opana ; that is, 
putrid fish preserved in pits, and served up to them 
mixed with hot water. The Greenlanders are not 
better masters : they leave their dogs to feed on 
muscles or berries ; unless they happen to be par- 
ticularly fortunate in catching seals, when, by way 
of an extraordinary luxury, they treat the poor crea- 
