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GREYHOUNDS AND THEIR ARAB MASTERS.
If we travel about from one country to another, we shall find that each one has a particular kind of dog which is considered useful and precious above all others. In Scotland it is the collie which is most prized, in the high Alps it is the St. Bernard, while in Greenland no one would get on at all without the Eskimo dogs, who draw sledges and do quantities of other needful work, and in Newfoundland there are very few houses which cannot boast of one of the huge black good-natured dogs who are equally ready to be nurses to the children, or to jump into the water to save a drowning man.
Now, in the high plains of Kordofan, which lie to the west of the White Nile, the greyhound or wind dog, as it is called by the Germans, is held in great honour. If you walk through any of the villages, you will see three or four greyhounds lying before the door of every hut, each one more beautiful than the other. They are the village policemen, and guard the people from the fierce leopards and hyænas which steal down at night from the caves where they sleep all day, and prowl round in search of a supper. Like their enemies, the greyhounds sleep during the long hot hours when the sun is up, but the moment he sinks, and the quick darkness of the tropics comes on, they stretch themselves and begin to set about performing their duties. There is no quarrelling or confusion—each dog seems to have his post, and he goes to it at once. If the village is walled in, a certain
