The dogs at Al-Madinah are not less pugnacious than the horses.[FN#29] They are stronger and braver than those that haunt the streets at Cairo; like the Egyptians, they have amongst themselves a system of police regulations, which brings down all the posse comitatus upon the unhappy straggler who ventures into a strange quarter of the town.  They certainly met in Al-Barr upon common

[p.302] ground, to decide the differences which must arise in so artificial a state of canine society.

Having had many opportunities of watching them, I can positively assert that they were divided into two parties, which fought with a skill and an acharnement that astounded me.  Sometimes when one side gave way, and as the retreat was degenerating into a sauve qui peut, some proud warrior, a dog-hero, would sacrifice himself for the public weal, and with gnashing teeth and howls of rage encounter the assaults of the insolent victors until his flying friends had time to recover heart.  Such an one my companions called “Mubariz.[FN#30]” At other times, some huge animal, an Ajax of his kind, would plunge into the ring with frantic yells, roll over one dog, snap at a second, worry a third for a minute or two, and then dash off to a distant part, where a thicker field required his presence.  This uncommon sagacity has been remarked by the Arabs, who look on amused at their battles.  Current in Al-Hijaz are also certain superstitions about the dog resembling ours; only, as usual, more poetical and less grotesque.  Most people believe that when the animal howls without apparent cause in the neighbourhood of a house, it forbodes death to one of the inmates; for the dog they say can distinguish the awful form of Azrail, the Angel of Death, hovering over the doomed abode, whereas man’s spiritual sight is dull and dim by reason of his sins.

When the Damascus Caravan entered Al-Madinah, our day became a little more amusing.  From the windows of Shaykh Hamid’s house there was a perpetual succession of strange scenes.  A Persian nobleman, also, had pitched his tents so near the door, that the whole course of his private life became public and patent to the boy Mohammed,

[p.303] who amused his companions by reporting all manner of ludicrous scenes.  The Persian’s wife was rather a pretty woman, and she excited the youth’s fierce indignation, by not veiling her face when he gazed at her,-thereby showing that, as his beard was not grown, she considered him a mere boy.

“I will ask her to marry me,” said Mohammed, “and thereby rouse her shame!”

He did so, but, unhappy youth! the fair Persian never even ceased fanning herself.

The boy Mohammed was for once confounded.