I have but one more anecdote of a dog, for the present; and that is one for the truth of which I distinctly decline to vouch. It was imparted to me by a calker, who owned a woolly French poodle, which remarkable animal, he informed me, used to swim out regularly once a week,--on Saturday evenings, I think he said,--with a large wisp of tow in his mouth, upon the ascension of his fleas into which place of refuge, he would "let it slide" down the current and swim back tranquilly to the shore, there to slumber away another week in comparative comfort.[1]
[Footnote 1: The calker's dog had probably never read Olaus Magnus, though that worthy Archbishop wrote something very like dog-Latin; but, as dwellers on the margin of the "Atlantic," we have too great a respect for a prelate who believed in the kraaken and the sea-serpent, not to refer our valued Cynophilist to the Thirty-Ninth Chapter of the Eighteenth Book _De Gentibus Septentrionalibus_, where he will find the same story told of the fox.--_Eds. Atlantic._]
Having thus calked my Dog-Talk--bark, in fact--with this very tough bit of yarn, I now trustfully commit it to the mercies of the "Atlantic."
Your thought may recur with mine To a certain place in the city, Where you sometimes have chanced to dine; If not, why, the more's the pity!
Did you notice the delicate way Whereby, with the trencher and cup, Comes a hint of the matter of pay, In a counter laid _blank side up_?
Now,--not to pervert the intent Of a courtesy gentle and rare, Or observance so civilly meant With disparaging things to compare,--
By the token your messenger brings, Did such services never suggest A likeness to manifold things Of the world, and the flesh, and--the rest?
Command whatsoever you will, To pamper your folly or pride; You shall find, that unfailingly, still, The _counter_ is laid beside,
Silently,--seemingly fair,-- Till an angel the disk shall turn, And the soul's great debt, the inscription there, On her vision shall burst and burn!
A hot and dusty journey of some six hours brought us to Matanzas at high noon. Our companions were Cubans, Spaniards, Americans, and game-chickens, that travel extensively in these parts, sometimes in little baskets, with openings for the head and tail, sometimes in the hands of their owners, secured only by a string fastened to one foot and passed over the body. They seem to be objects of tender solicitude to those who carry them; they are nursed and fondled like children, and at intervals are visited all round by a negro, who fills his mouth with water, and squirts it into their eyes and under their feathers. They are curiously plucked on the back and about the tail, where only the long tail-feathers are allowed to grow. Their tameness in the hands of their masters is quite remarkable; they suffer themselves to be turned and held in any direction. But when set down, at any stage of the journey, they stamp their little feet, stretch their necks, crow, and look about them for the other cock with most belligerent eyes. As we have said that the negro of the North is an ideal negro, so we must say that the game-cock of Cuba is an ideal chicken, a fowl that is too good to be killed,--clever enough to fight for people who are too indolent and perhaps too cowardly to fight for themselves,--in short, the gladiator of the tropics.