Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1890-12-26
GIFT TO THE PRESIDENT.
a Nondescript Brute from Morocco That
Never Reached tho white House.

A good story is told connected with
the United States governments expert
ment in importing a herd of camels
from the Barbary coast in 1856 for the
army on the plains. The camels,
saws writer in the Kansas City Star,
had all been loaded on board the store
ship Supply. and one day while the
ship was lying off the coast of Morocco
q native vessel rounded to and brought,
as present from the emperor of the
country to the president of the United
States, a nondescript sort of an ami
NAL. said to be part dog. part hyena,
part wolf, and n mixture, as it was
alleged, of a dozen other ferocious
beasts of the genus canus, whose hab-
itat was the Mountains of the Moon in
Africa.
The awful looking brute was con-
was hoisted on board and put down in
the hold. He was very tall. long.
huge and powerfully built and he had
a mass of gray hair running from his
head to the end of his body which,
whenever he was angry, would stand
up the whole length of his body as
stiff as hogs bristles. As he never
was in mild mood his hair was
always in a state of rigid erection. He
had not been on board half an hour
before he had DESTROYED bis cage. and
only after great deal of trouble was
he confined in another and stronger
one. The way he was fed was by
lowering buckets to him. as no one
dared to approach the brute, and when
they desired to clean out his pen the
ships hose was turned on and the place
flooded. He was an unmitigated nuiS-
ance, and how 10 get rid Of the mon
ster was a serious problem.
At last the Supply anchored of Con-
stantinople, where dogs are the only
city scavengers. These are wild and
ferocious, having, or rather acknowl-
edging, no master, and each particular
pack has its own range or quarter of
the city. which they never leave. The
moment a strange cur makes its APP
pearance about them they kill him.
Lieut.. Porter had made many abortive
attempts to give the animal away.
The consul suggested the idea of land
ing the ugly beast on Seraglio point
where the largest Of the packs of the
wild and owperless scavenger dogs of
Constantinople roamed. SO one Satur-
day afternoon they proceeded to land
the royal cur. and. after a great deal
of trouble. succeeded in getting a rope
around him where he stood in his cage
down in the hold; then they tied his
legs together and put a canvas hood
over his head. He was then hoisted.
He made break for the shore. the
canvas hood slipping of immediately,
as it had been so fixed that it would.
Reaching the beach he rolled in the
sand two or three times, then stood up
and took an observation. The sleep
ing pack of native dogs were still
curled up in their favorite spots per-
fectly oblivious of his presence. He
saw them at once. and in an instant
he was in their midst and the fight
commenced. The pack flew at him,
but he had killed n half-dozen before
they got the best of him. The air was
black with dust and dogs. and for
more than half an hour the thing was
kept up. Then the place assumed its
normal quiet, and the Constantinople
ours again resumed their siesta, while
nothing was left of the emperor's gift.