LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
173 
sion. One of the allies placed himself in the front of old tom, 
not daring to lay his paw upon the lump of flesh, that he was 
masticating; nor did tom appear to treat the impudent observer 
of his actions, with any tokens of fear or resentment. On a 
sudden, however, an attack was made in a quarter, which tom 
little expected, and the reason of which he could not possibly 
guess. This part, so rudely and insolently attacked, was 
his tail; and to attack the tail of a cat, is equal in indignity 
to the tweak of a nose, or a spit in the face, amongst the 
Christians. 
It would have been deemed a direct act of cowardice, on the 
part of tom, not to have resented this attack upon his tail, and 
therefore, with a becoming spirit, he turned round to punish the 
insolent assailant, by the severest infliction of his talons, which 
his strength would allow him. The assailant expected the 
punishment that awaited him, and dexterously parried the blow, 
which would have excoriated his face. Old tom, having put 
his enemy in the rear to flight, coolly returned to conclude his 
meal; but great, indeed, was his disappointment, when he 
discovered, that whilst he was defending himself against the 
attack in the rear, his enemy in front had illegally and unjusti¬ 
fiably seized upon his provender, and was then devouring 
behind a tub, the last portion of it ; casting a look of malicious 
triumph towards old tom, who retired to a corner, in the sulks, 
wishing all those at Jericho, who had brought him to a country, 
where his very food was snapped away from him, by a set of 
brutes, which, in his native land, never dared to show their face? 
in his presence. 
It was, however, not only once, twice, nor thrice, that this 
stratagem was played upon old tom, but it was also practised 
against the other cats; and the foxes supported the character 
for cunning and artifice, which was given them, at their origin, 
\ y Nature, and which was confirmed to them by Noah, when 
1 e sent them adrift from his ark, to propagate their species on 
the earth. 
In regard to the curing of the fish, a very serious charge of 
eglect, not to call it by a much severer name, was brought 
20. 3 p 
