Channel, observed several bears prowling about in search of seals. "On
one occasion," he writes, "I saw a bear swimming across a lane of water,
and pushing a large piece of ice before him. Landing on the floe, he
advanced stealthily towards a couple of seals, which were basking in the
sun at some little distance, still holding the ice in front to hide his
black muzzle; but this most sagacious of bears was for once outwitted,
for the seals dived into a pool of water before he could get within
reach. On another occasion, a female Bruin having been shot from the
deck of the _Intrepid_, her affectionate cub, an animal about the size
of a large Newfoundland dog, remained resolutely by the side of its
mother, and on the approach of the commander of the _Intrepid_ with part
of his crew, a sort of tournament ensued, in which the youthful bear,
although belaboured most savagely, showed a gallant resistance, and at
length rushing between the legs of the corporal of marines, laid him
prostrate on the ice, floored another man, who had seized hold of his
tail, and effected his escape."
CAPTAIN OMMANEY AND THE POLAR BEAR.
Captain Ommaney,[41] who led one of the travelling parties in 1851 sent
out from the ships under Austin in search of Franklin on the 12th of
June, the day before he arrived at the ships, met with a laughable
accident, although it might have had a serious termination. They had all
of them but just got into their blanket bags, when a peculiar noise, as
if something was rubbing up the snow, was heard outside. The gallant
captain instantly divined its cause, seized, loaded, and cocked his gun,
and ordered the tent door to be opened, upon which a huge bear was seen
outside. Captain Ommaney fired at the animal, but, whether from the
benumbed state of his limbs, or the dim glimmering light, he
unfortunately missed him, and shot away the rope that supported the tent
instead. The enraged monster then poked his head against the poles, and
the tent fell upon its terrified inmates, and embraced them in its
folds. Their confusion and dismay can more easily be imagined than
described, but at length one man, with more self-possession than the
rest, slipped out of his bag, scrambled from under the prostrate tent,
and ran to the sledge for another gun; and it was well that he did so,
for no sooner had he vacated his sleeping sack than Bruin seized it
between his teeth, and shook it violently, with the evident intention of
wreaking his vengeance on its inmate. He was, however, speedily
despatched by a well-aimed shot from the man, the tent was repitched,
and tranquillity restored.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] "Hungary and Transylvania," &c., by John Paget, Esq., vol. ii. p.
445.
[31] "Conversations of Lord Byron," p. 72.
[32] "Master Humphrey's Clock."
[33] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 331
[34] [Greek: Thalassa], sea; [Greek: arktos], bear.
[35] Those "Arctic hedge-rows," as Mr David Walker calls them, when, on
the 30th November 1857, he was on board the Arctic yacht _Fox_,
wintering in the floe-ice of Baffin's Bay. "The scene apparent on going
on deck after breakfast was splendid, and unlike anything I ever saw
before. The subdued light of the moon thrown over such a vast expanse of
ice, in the distance the loom of a berg, or the shadow of the hummocks
(the Arctic hedge-rows), the only thing to break the even surface, a few
stars peeping out, as if gazing in wonder at the spectacle,--all united
to render the prospect striking, and lead one to contemplate the
goodness and power of the Creator." On the 2d November, they had killed
a bear, which had been bayed and surrounded by their Esquimaux dogs.
Captain M'Clintock shot him. He was 7 feet 3 inches long. Only one of
the dogs was injured by his paws. Much did the hungry beasts enjoy their
feast, for they "were regaled with the entrails, which they polished off
in a very short time."--_Mr Walker, in_ _"Belfast News Letter," quoted
in "Dublin Natural History Review," 1858_, p. 180.
[36] "Account of Arctic Regions," i. 517.
[37] The anecdote is given with more detail at p. 67.
[38] "Attempt to Reach the North Pole," p. 115.
[39] "Life of Nelson," by Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate, p.
11.
[40] "Franklin's Footsteps," by Clement R. Markham, p. 65.
[41] "Franklin's Footsteps," by Clement Robert Markham, late of H.M.S.
_Assistance_, p. 93.
RACCOON.
A strikingly pretty, well-clad, and pleasingly coloured North American
quadruped, of which many zoological anecdotes might be given. Linnaeus
named it _Ursu lotor_, or the Washer, from its curious habit of putting
any food offered to it, at least when in confinement, into water, before
attempting to eat it.
"A GONE COON."
An American phrase for "the last extremity," or, "it's all up." They say
that a Major, or Colonel, or General Scott "down South" was notorious as
a dead shot. Once on a time, when out with his gun, he espied a raccoon
on a lofty tree. The poor raccoon, noticing the gun pointed at him,
cried to the dead shot, "Air _you_ General Scott?"--"I air."--"Then
wait, I air a comin' down, for I air _a gone coon_."
BADGER.
The badger, or brock, as it is called in Scotland, is yearly becoming
more and more rare. In a few years, this curious and powerful member of
the _ferae_, will figure, like the bear and beaver, as among the extinct
quadrupeds of these islands. Naturalists will be recording that in the
days of Robert Burns it must have been not at all uncommon, and not rare
in those of Hugh Miller, since low dram-shops kept them for the
entertainment of their guests. The Ayrshire bard makes the Newfoundland
dog, Caesar, say to his comrade Luath, the collie, when, speaking of most
of the gentry of his day--
"They gang as saucy by poor folk
As I wad by a stinking brock."[42]
The author of "Old Red Sandstone" and "My Schools and Schoolmasters,"
has recorded in the latter work the history of his employment as a hewer
of great stones under the branching foliage of the elm and chestnut
trees of Niddry Park, near Edinburgh, and how, in the course of a strike
among the masons, he marched into town with several of them to a meeting
on the Links, where, conspicuous from the deep red hue of their clothes
and aprons, they were cheered as a reinforcement from a distance. On
adjourning, Hugh Miller, in his racy style, gives the following account
of a badger-baiting more than forty years ago:--
HUGH MILLER AND THE BADGER-BAITING IN THE CANONGATE.
"My comrades proposed that we should pass the time until the hour of
meeting in a public-house, and, desirous of securing a glimpse of the
sort of enjoyment for which they sacrificed so much, I accompanied them.
Passing not a few more inviting-looking places, we entered a low tavern
in the upper part of the Canongate, kept in an old half-ruinous
building, which has since disappeared. We passed on through a narrow
passage to a low-roofed room in the centre of the erection, into which
the light of day never penetrated, and in which the gas was burning
dimly in a close, sluggish atmosphere, rendered still more stifling by
tobacco-smoke, and a strong smell of ardent spirits. In the middle of
the crazy floor there was a trap-door, which lay open at the time; and a
wild combination of sounds, in which the yelping of a dog, and a few
gruff voices that seemed cheering him on, were most noticeable, rose
from the apartment below. It was customary at this time for dram-shops
to keep badgers housed in long narrow boxes, and for working men to keep
dogs; and it was part of the ordinary sport of such places to set the
dogs to unhouse the badgers. The wild sport which Scott describes in his
'Guy Mannering,' as pursued by Dandy Dinmont and his associates among
the Cheviots, was extensively practised twenty-nine years ago amid the
dingier haunts of the High Street and Canongate. Our party, like most
others, had its dog,--a repulsive-looking brute, with an earth-directed
eye; as if he carried about with him an evil conscience; and my
companions were desirous of getting his earthing ability tested upon the
badger of the establishment; but on summoning the tavern-keeper, we were
told that the party below had got the start of us. Their dog was, as we
might hear, 'just drawing the badger; and before our dog could be
permitted to draw him, the poor brute would require to get an hour's
rest.' I need scarce say, that the hour was spent in hard drinking in
that stagnant atmosphere; and we then all descended through the
trap-door, by means of a ladder, into a bare-walled dungeon, dark and
damp, and where the pestiferous air smelt like that of a burial vault.
The scene which followed was exceedingly repulsive and brutal,--nearly
as much so as some of the scenes furnished by those otter-hunts in which
the aristocracy of the country delight occasionally to indulge. Amid
shouts and yells the badger, with the blood of his recent conflict still
fresh upon him, was again drawn to the box-mouth; and the party
returning satisfied to the apartment above, again betook themselves to
hard drinking. In a short time the liquor began to tell, not first, as
might be supposed, on our younger men, who were mostly tall, vigorous
fellows, in the first flush of their full strength, but on a few of the
middle-aged workmen, whose constitutions seemed undermined by a previous
course of dissipation and debauchery. The conversation became very loud,
very involved, and though highly seasoned with emphatic oaths, very
insipid; and leaving with Cha--who seemed somewhat uneasy that my eye
should be upon their meeting in its hour of weakness--money enough to
clear off my share of the reckoning, I stole out to the King's Park, and
passed an hour to better purpose among the trap rocks than I could
possibly have spent it beside the trap-door of that tavern party. I am
not aware that a single individual, save the writer, is now living; its
very dog did not live out half his days. His owner was alarmed one
morning, shortly after this time, by the intelligence that a dozen of
sheep had been worried during the night on a neighbouring farm, and that
a dog very like his had been seen prowling about the fold; but in order
to determine the point, he would be visited, it was added, in the course
of the day, by the shepherd and a law-officer. The dog meanwhile,
however, conscious of guilt,--for dogs do seem to have consciences in
such matters,--was nowhere to be found, though, after the lapse of
nearly a week, he again appeared at the work; and his master, slipping a
rope round his neck, brought him to a deserted coal-pit half-filled with
water, that opened in an adjacent field, and flinging him in, left the
authorities no clue by which to establish his identity with the robber
and assassin of the fold."[43]
THE LAIRD OF BALNAMOON AND THE BROCK.
The laird, so Dean Ramsay had the story sent him, once riding past a
high steep bank, stopped opposite a hole in it, and said, "John, I saw a
brock gang in there."--"Did ye?" said John; "wull ye haud my horse,
sir?"--"Certainly," said the laird, and away rushed John for a spade.
After digging for half an hour, he came back, nigh speechless to the
laird, who had regarded him musingly. "I canna find him, sir," said
John.--"'Deed," said the laird, very coolly, "I wad ha' wondered if ye
had, for it's ten years sin' I saw him gang in there."[44]
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1787, p. 14, "The Twa
Dogs."
FERRET.
A truly blood-thirsty member of that slim-bodied but active race, the
weasel tribe. He is certainly an inhabitant of a warmer climate than
this, being very sensitive to cold. He is used in killing rats and
_ferreting out_ rabbits, a verb indeed derived from his name. He has
been known to attack sleeping infants.
COLLINS AND THE RAT-CATCHERS _grip_ OF HIS FERRETS.
That delightful painter of cottage life, says his son,[45] often found
cottagers who gloried in being painted, and who sat like professional
models, under an erroneous impression that it was for their personal
beauties and perfections that their likenesses were portrayed. The
remarks of these and other good people, who sat to the painter in
perfect ignorance of the use or object of his labours, were often
exquisitely original. He used to quote the criticism of a celebrated
country rat-catcher, on the study he had made from him, with hearty
triumph and delight. When asked whether he thought his portrait like,
the rat-catcher, who--perhaps in virtue of his calling--was a gruff and
unhesitating man, immediately declared that the face was "not a morsel
like," but vowed with a great oath, that nothing could ever be equal to
the correctness of the _dirt shine on his old leather breeches_, and the
_grip_ that he had of _the necks of his ferrets_!
FOOTNOTES:
[43] "My Schools and Schoolmasters; or, The Story of my Education," by
Hugh Miller, fifth edition, 1856, pp. 321-323.
[44] "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," tenth edition,
1864, p. 183.
POLE-CAT.
An equally blood-thirsty member of the weasel family, with the subject
of the preceding paragraph.
FOX AND THE POLE-CAT.--(POLL-CAT.[46])
Francis Grose relates the following as having happened during one of the
famous Westminster elections:--"During the poll, a dead cat being thrown
on the hustings, one of Sir Cecil Wray's party observed it stunk worse
than a fox, to which Mr Fox replied, there was nothing extraordinary in
that, considering it was a poll-cat."
FOOTNOTES:
[45] "Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, R.A," by his son, W.
Wilkie Collins, i. p. 222.
DOGS.
One who seems to love the race of dogs, and who has written a most
readable book on them,[47] remarks, that the dog "even now is rarely the
companion of a Jew, or the inmate of his house." He quotes various terms
of reproach still common among us, and which seem to have originated
from a similar feeling to that of the Jew. For instance, we say of a
very cheap article, that it is "dog cheap." To call a person "a dog," or
"a cur," or "a hound," means something the very opposite of
complimentary. A surly person is said to have "a dogged disposition."
Any one very much fatigued is said to be "dog weary." A wretched room or
house is often called "a dog hole," or said to be only fit for "a dog."
Very poor verse is "doggerel." It is told of Lady Mary Wortley
Montague, that when a young nobleman refused to translate some
inscription over an alcove, because it was in "dog-latin," she observed,
"How strange a puppy shouldn't understand his mother tongue."
What, too, can be more expressive of a man being on the verge of ruin,
than the common phrase, that "such a one is going to the dogs." Of
modern describers of the very life and feelings of dogs, who can surpass
Dr John Brown of Edinburgh? His "Rab," and his "Our Dogs," are worthy of
the brush of Sir Edwin Landseer. Who has not heard the answer _said_ to
have been given by Sydney Smith to the great painter, when he wanted to
make a portrait of the witty canon, "_Is thy servant a dog, that he
should do this thing?_"
There is great diversity of standard in matters of taste. In China, a
well-roasted pup, of any variety of the very variable _Canis
familiaris_, is a dainty dish. In London the greatest exquisite delights
in the taste of a half-cooked woodcock, but would scruple to eat a
lady's lap-dog, even though descended, by indubitable pedigree, from a
genuine "liver-and-tan" spaniel, that followed King Charles II. in his
strolls through St James's Park; and which was given to her ladyship's
ancestress on a day recorded, perhaps, in the diary of Mr Samuel Pepys.
Again, in the country of the Esquimaux, who has not read in the
intensely interesting narratives of the Moravian missionaries, how the
dogs of the "Innuit"--of "the men," as they call themselves--are, in
winter, indispensable to their very existence? Parry, Lyon, Franklin,
Richardson, Ross, Rae, Penny, Sutherland, Inglefield, and Kane, have
told us what excellent "carriage"-pullers these hardy children of the
snow become from early infancy; and how the more they work, like the
wives of savages in Australia, the more they are kicked. Passing over
the dogs of the Indian tribes of North America and the gaunt race in
Patagonia, the reader may remember that the Roman youth, like the young
Briton, had, in the days of Horace, his outer marks--one was, that he
loved to have a dog, or a whole pack beside him--"_gaudet canibus_."
This attachment to the dog is given us "from above," and is one of the
many "good gifts" which proceed from Him, who made man and dog
"familiar," as the apt specific name of Linnaeus denominates the latter.
One of our greatly-gifted poets, in a cynical mood, could write an
epitaph on a favourite Newfoundlander, and end it with the dismal lines
on his views of "earthly friends"--
"He never knew but one,--and here he lies."
Our genial and home-loving Cowper has made his dog Beau classical. We
must beg our readers to refresh their memories, by looking into the
Olney bard's exquisite story,
"My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree,"
and they will find that _that_ story of "The Dog and the Water-lily" was
"no fable," and that Beau really understood his master's wish when he
fetched him a water-lily out of "Ouse's silent tide." How graceful are
the last two stanzas of that sweet little poem--
"Charm'd with the sight, 'The world,' I cried,
'Shall hear of this thy deed;
My dog shall mortify the pride
Of man's superior breed.
'But chief myself I will enjoin,
Awake at duty's call,
To show a love as prompt as thine
To Him who gives me all.'"[48]
[Illustration: BEAU.]
That the world might know the very "mark and figure" of this spaniel,
the late able illustrator of so many topographical works (Mr James
Storer) published in his "Rural Walks of Cowper"[49] a figure of Beau,
from the stuffed skin in the possession of Cowper's kinsman, the Rev.
Dr Johnson.
Mr Montague, in a letter to the son and biographer of Sir James
Mackintosh,[50] gives many reminiscences of that eminent man, who was
much attached to the memory of Cowper. He says, "We reached Dereham
about mid-day (it was in 1801), and wrote to Mr Johnson, the clergyman,
who had protected Cowper in the last years of his life, and in whose
house he died. He instantly called upon us, and we accompanied him to
his house. In the hall, we were introduced to a little red and white
spaniel, in a glass case--the little dog Beau, who, seeing the
water-lily which Cowper could not reach, 'plunging, left the shore.'"
"I saw him with that lily cropp'd,
Impatient swim to meet
My quick approach, and soon he dropp'd
The treasure at my feet."
We saw the room where Cowper died, and the bell which he last touched.
We went to his grave, and to Mrs Unwin's, who is buried at some
distance. I lamented this, "Do not live in the visible, but the
invisible," said your father,--"his attainments, his tenderness, his
affections, his sufferings, and his hardships, will live long after both
their graves are no more."
We could linger over a prized octavo volume, published in Edinburgh in
1787; the first poem of this, "The Twa Dogs, a Tale," occupies some
thirteen pages, written with that "rare felicity" so common to _the_
Bard of Scotland. We mention it, because of the peculiar happiness with
which the collie, or Scottish shepherd-dog, is described in lines that
Sir Edwin Landseer alone has equalled on canvas, or his brother Thomas
with the graver--
"He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke
As ever lap a sheugh or dyke.
His honest, sonsie, bawsn't[51] face,
Aye gat him friends in ilka place.
His breast was white, his touzie back
Weel clad wi' coat of glossy black;
His gaucie tail, wi' upward curl,
Hung owre his hurdies wi' a swirl."
_That's_ the shepherd-dog, as we have heard him described from a
specimen, which was the friend and follower of a valued one, who, when a
boy ('tis many years ago), frisked with the dog, over _one_ of the many
ferny haughs that margin the lovely Tweed above and below Peebles. It is
_the_ collie we have seen, on one of the sheep-farms of Lanarkshire,
obey its young master by a word or two, as unintelligible to us as
Japanese. But to the Culter "Luath," to hear was to obey; and in a
quarter of an hour a flock of sheep, which had been feeding on a
hillSide half a mile off, were brought back, driven by this faithful
"bit doggie." We wonder not that shepherds love their dogs. Why, even
the New Smithfield cattle-drovers, who drive sheep along the streets of
London on a Monday or Friday, never even require to urge their faithful
partners. Well may the gifted authoress of "The Dream" address "the
faithful guardian"--
"Oh, tried and trusted! thou whose love
Ne'er changes nor forsakes,
Thou proof, how perfect God hath stamp'd
The meanest thing He makes;
Thou, whom no snare entraps to serve,
No art is used to tame
(Train'd, like ourselves, thy path to know,
By words of love and blame);
Friend! who beside the cottage door,
Or in the rich man's hall,
With steadfast faith still answerest
The one familiar call;
Well by poor hearth and lordly home
Thy couchant form may rest,
And Prince and Peasant trust thee still,
To guard what they love best."
_Hon. Mrs Norton, "The Dream," &c._, p. 192.
No ordinary-sized volume, much less a short article, could give a tithe
of the true anecdotes of members of the dog race. Mere references to
their biography would take up a volume of Bibliography itself, just as
their forms, and character, and "pose," give endless subject to the
painter. Of modern authors, no one loved dogs more truly than Sir Walter
Scott, as the reader of his writings and of his biography is well
aware;[52] but it may not be generally known that, on the only occasion
when the great novelist met the Ayrshire peasant,--
"Virgilium tantum vidi,"--
the poem, which had made Burns a wonder to the boy then "unknown," was
that of "The Twa Dogs;" so that, even then, Scott had commenced to show
his attachment to these faithful followers. It was in the house of Sir
Adam Ferguson, when Scott was a mere lad; and the scene was described
most vividly to the writer by the late Scottish knight, after whose
battle in South Italy the author of "Marmion" named his pet staghound
Maida, or, as Scott pronounced it, "Myda." It was as the author of "The
Twa Dogs" that young Ferguson and Scott regarded Burns on his entrance
into the room with such wistful attention. The story is told in
Lockhart, and we will not quote it further; but, leaving dogs of our own
days and lands to Mr Jesse, who has given an interesting volume on them,
we will close with a few paragraphs on the dog of the East--a very
differently treated animal to that generally prized and esteemed
"friend" of man in these lands of the West.