arty, and they ran to tell it to their
companions, who screamed with laughter as well; so that I unwittingly
started a fine joke that day in the slave-market.

* * * * *

DOGS IN CONSTANTINOPLE.--After an hour's doze I woke up again, and went
and sat by the window. The noise I then heard I shall never forget.

To say that if all the sheep-dogs going to Smithfield on a market-day
had been kept on the constant bark, and pitted against the yelping curs
upon all the carts in London, they could have given any idea of the
canine uproar that now first astonished me, would be to make the
feeblest of images. The whole city rang with one vast riot. Down below
me at Tophane--over at Stamboul--far away at Scutari--the whole eighty
thousand dogs that are said to overrun Constantinople, appeared engaged
in the most active extermination of each other, without a moment's
cessation. The yelping, howling, barking, growling, and snarling, were
all merged into one uniform and continuous, even sound, as the noise of
frogs becomes when heard at a distance. For hours there was no lull. I
went to sleep, and woke again, and still, with my windows open, I heard
the same tumult going on: nor was it until daybreak that any thing like
tranquillity was restored. In spite of my early instruction, the dogs
delight to bark and bite, and should be allowed to do so, it being their
nature, I could not help wishing that, for a short season, the power was
vested in me to carry out the most palpable service for which brickbats
and the Bosphorus could be made conjointly available.

Going out in the day-time, it is not difficult to find traces of the
fights of the night, about the limbs of all the street-dogs. There is
not one, among their vast number, in the enjoyment of a perfect skin.
Some have their ears gnawed away or pulled off; others have had their
eyes taken out; from the backs and haunches of others, perfect steaks of
flesh have been torn away; and all bear the scars of desperate combats.

Wild and desperate as is their nature, these poor animals are
susceptible of kindness. If a scrap of bread is thrown to one of them
now and then, he does not forget it; for they have, at times, a hard
matter to live--not the dogs among the shops of Galata or Stamboul, but
those whose "parish" lies in the large burying-grounds and desert-places
without the city; for each keeps, or rather is kept, to his district;
and if he chanced