MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
151 
demried for trying to be human ? If they hate with a bigoted 
cordiality, yet they love with a barbarous sincerity. 
Opposite to the Hotel de Byzant is an open space, inhabit¬ 
ed by one of these canine communities, whose operations of 
domestic and municipal economy afford me constant food for 
study. Near by is a Mohammedan grave-yard, inhabited by 
another tribe ; and it is my chief employment, every after- 
noon, to sit on the portico, smoking a chibouck, and watching 
the movements of my four-legged neighbors. I have formed 
quite an attachment for the Byzantines, and a bitter preju¬ 
dice against those sneaking fellows beyond, who skulk behind 
the tomb-stones. We of the Byzant region—for I have fought 
for them, and am now treated as a member of the commu¬ 
nity, and always received with a general w r agging of tails— 
we, Byzantines, depend chiefly for our living upon the offal 
cast out from a range of houses just beyond the boundary. 
True, this is not strictly our property, but we consider that it 
ought to be ; and so whenever a bone, or a mutilated cat, or 
defunct chicken, is thrown out, we are startled from our sun¬ 
ny corners and daily slumbers by the little curs that we keep 
to wake us; and, headed by the shaggy old veterans, who 
have fought their way to eminence, we sally forth in a body 
to seize our prey. Domestic difficulties ensue; hungry drones, 
who are the first to run, want more than their share, and 
scuffles take place, which arouse the scouts of the enemy 
Now from every tomb-stone there springs a barking foe ; the 
grave-yard re-echoes with the call to arms; big dogs and lit¬ 
tle dogs rush furiously into battle array; and down they thun 
der in terrible force upon the fighting Byzantines, in an ava 
lanche of dust. One universal yell of rage and defiance rends 
the welkin; the smoke of battle rises on high, and for a while 
nothing is seen but a cloud of dust, and nothing heard but the 
gritting of teeth and the tug of strife at close quarters. It is 
a moment of awful suspense. Shall it be victory and chicken, 
or defeat without chicken ? The noble Byzantines or the 
skulking Tombers ? Now there is a swaying to and fro of 
the struggling mass—tails begin to appear through the dust; 
the wounded rush out and skulk off, panting, to places of 
