The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-01-02
A DOG IN OLD EGYPT.
Bo waaa Friend, and Treated Like n Hu
man Being,

In Egypt the dog was n friend and
faithful servant. He lived in the house
with his master, followed him in his
walks, attended the public ceremonies,
sometimes free at other times held in
leash by slave or child, or in priDcely
families by favorite dwarf. At his
meals he had his place marked under
the benches of the guests AS in Greece
and Rome, he was there to dispose of
bones the fragments of meat, and the
pieces of bread that were thrown down,
and in a general way to keep the dining
room clean. These were certainly not
very refined fashions, and IL our house
dogs had TO satisfy themselves in this
way, they would be likely to die Of hun
ger.
The ancients did not feel the delicate
tastes and disgusts in such matters that
we experience; their life presented ex-
cessive refnements and rude features
of which we have no idea, side by side.
The house dog in Egypt was domestic,
working at his trade, only his trade was
one Of those in which we have ceased to
employ him; it may not have been
| great thing that he was lost, but it is in
/ the kitchen or his kennel that he fin
| ishes up his masters dessert.
The house dog was shaved, combed
and washed. He was sometimes tinted
with benna as If he were woman. He
wore fine collars on his neck, furnished
sometimes with an earthernware clasp
in the shape of bell or flower. Chill
dren played with him, became attached
to him, and the hero of one story, to
whom his fates had predicted at his
birth that he would die of the bite of
dog, willingly confronted the threatened
danger rather than be separated from
the dog which he had raised He, of
course, had name, to which he an
s~ered: S-toga, the son of the bat;
| Aleni, the ferreter; Khaoubson, the
lamp or star; Soubou, the strong, and
Nahsi, the black.
He is seen with kings as well as with
common persons. Ramesis H.. during
the earlier years of his reign, was al
ways escorted by female dog, which
was called Anaitiennaktou, or brave as
the goddess Anaitis, petty king of
the eleventh dynasty, about 5000 B. c.,
had five dogs, which he so loved that he
carved their names and engraved their
portraits on his tomb. They were, in
deed, blooded animals, whose names
revealed their foreign origin. The
finest of them was called Abaikarou, a
faithful transcription of the word A bal.
kour, by which the hunting dog is desig-
mated in many of the Berber districts
The shepherds had dogs of medium
size, with pointed ears, like those which
guard the iocks of Upper Egypt.
Hunters sought out two or three kinds
of hounds, some having straight ears
and short tails, and some dropping ears
and long tail, like the slouguis of the
modern Berbers. They are to be seen
in many of the tombs, springing in pur-
suit of gazelles and antelopes, or run
ming down the hare and the ostrich. A
few pugs, heavy and grotesque like
ours, are represented occasionally,
rather as house dogs than as hunters.
These animals were in considerable
number, and made the ancient Egyptian
villages as dangerous at night as mod.
ern villages are. An officer relegated
to one of the delta burgs few years
after the death of Rameses II. COM
planned bitterly of their boldness in a
letter addressed to one of his chiefs:
"When, sometimes" he says, ''the
people of the country meet to drink
Cilician beer and go out to open the
bottles-there are two hundred large
mastiffs and three hundred wolf-dogs
waiting all day at the door of my house
every time go out at nightfall to
take part in the feast am kept out il
i have not with me the little wolf-dog
of Nahilon, the royal scribe, who lodges
with me. He saves me from the other
dogs. At whatever time go he goes
with me on the street, and when he
barks run, swinging my clubs and
whips. 1t is, in fact, only pack of
NANCY, high-tailed wolf-dogs prowling
around the cattle-pens. When they
have made their round the largest ones
in front, in a compact mass, as if in a
bunch, one would say that it was the
enchantment of some god, a flame which
had fixed itself out and would not let
60"
Rowing dogs are less numerous and
less ferocious now, but they become at
times terrible to strangers. 1t has often
happened to me, when casually passing
through a village of upper Egypt about
midnight, to be reminded when l met
them of the bulldog in one of Dickens
novels, i" bitter of man and killer OF
chickens for sport, which usually lived
on the right side of the street, but also
hid itself on the left side, so as to be
ready to jump upon the first passer-by. -
AS it is under Tewtik Pasha so it was
in the time of Rameses H., and the ex.
perience of the present day enables us
to understand exactly what oar scribe
meant in the passage have just quoted.
Nature.