I Soon Found That My Curiosity Had Led Me To A Most Extraordinary
Place, Which Quite Beggars The Scanty Powers Of Description With
Which I Am Gifted.
I stumbled on amongst ruined walls, and at one
time found I was treading over vaults, as I suddenly started back
from a yawning orifice into which my next step, as I strolled
musing along, would have precipitated me.
I proceeded for a
considerable way by the eastern wall, till I heard a tremendous
bark, and presently an immense dog, such as those which guard the
flocks in the neighbourhood against the wolves, came bounding to
attack me "with eyes that glowed and fangs that grinned." Had I
retreated, or had recourse to any other mode of defence than that
which I invariably practise under such circumstances, he would
probably have worried me; but I stooped till my chin nearly touched
my knee, and looked him full in the eyes, and as John Leyden says,
in the noblest ballad which the Land of Heather has produced:-
"The hound he yowled and back he fled,
As struck with fairy charm."
It is a fact known to many people, and I believe it has been
frequently stated, that no large and fierce dog or animal of any
kind, with the exception of the bull, which shuts its eyes and
rushes blindly forward, will venture to attack an individual who
confronts it with a firm and motionless countenance. I say large
and fierce, for it is much easier to repel a bloodhound or bear of
Finland in this manner than a dunghill cur or a terrier, against
which a stick or a stone is a much more certain defence.
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