beginning to die upon my ear, a sense of my sufferings returned, and I sought repose in my tent. But I found no repose there: the whole night was employed in endeavouring to assuage with gun powder and salt, the only applications in my power, an almost insufferable tooth-ache.
{98} My dogs never returned from the strife. I had lost the faithful, and disinterested partners of my toil. I could not leave so interesting a place. For two nights and one day I remained upon the spot;—but for what, I did not know. In the listlessness of sorrow I fired my rifle into the air. At length I realized, that my dogs had fallen nobly; and the sentiments of grief found a solace in the dictates of pride.
As the fate of my dogs is interesting I may be permitted to spend a moment in their praise.
They were not, like the hounds of Sparta, dewlaped and flewed; but they possessed the acuteness of these, with the courage of the mastiff. They were very large, and accustomed to the strife of the woods. Tyger was grave and intrepid. Small game excited in him no interest; but when the breath of the foe greeted him in the breeze, he surveyed, at a glance, and with a lofty aspect the surrounding wood. Slow, steady, and firm in pursuit, he remained silent until the object of his search was found; and then, a cry more terrible than his
"Was never hallowed to,
Nor check'd with horn in Crete or Thessaly."
He had lost an eye in the battles of the mountains, and was, in every sense of the word, a veteran.
Pomp was active, generous, affectionate, and in courage and perseverance unrivalled. In the night, it was his custom to pillow his head upon his master's breast; and he ever seemed concerned to guard him from the dangers of an unsheltered repose.
