History,' the
other, 'On Savagery in Dogs and Methods of Meeting their Attacks,'
for the _Journal_ of the Royal Institution of Cornwall.

On the morning of St Stephen's (or Boxing) Day, his professional
visits over, he devoted an hour to the second of these treatises.
He had reached this striking passage,--

'Homer informs us that the fury of a dog in attacking an
approaching stranger is appeased by the man's sitting down:--

'"Soon as Ulysses near th' enclosure drew,
With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew:
Down sat the sage and, cautious to withstand,
Let fall th' offensive truncheon from his hand."
Pope.

'Even at the present day this is a well-understood mode of
defence, as will be seen from the following:--

'At Argos one evening, at the table of General Gordon, then
commander-in-chief in the Morea, the conversation happened to
turn on the number and fierceness of Greek dogs, when one of
the company remarked that he knew a very simple expedient for
appeasing their fury. Happening on a journey to miss his road,
and being overtaken with darkness, he sought refuge for the
night at a pastoral settlement by the wayside. As he
approached, the dogs rushed out upon him, and the consequences
might have been serious had he not been rescued by an old
shepherd, the Eumaeus of the fold, who sallied forth and,
finding that the intruder was but a frightened traveller, after
pelting off his assailants, gave him a hospitable reception in
his hut. His guest made some remark on the watchfulness and
zeal of his dogs, and on the danger to which he had been
exposed in their attack. The old man replied that it was his
own fault for not taking the customary precaution in such an
emergency, that he ought to have stopped _and sat down_, until
some person whom the animals knew came to protect him.

'As this expedient was new to the traveller he made some further
inquiries, and was assured that if any person in such a
predicament will simply seat himself on the ground, laying
aside his weapons of defence, the dogs will also squat around
in a circle; that as long as he remains quiet they will follow
his example, but as soon as he rises and moves forward they
will renew the attack.'