There were services in the chapel; I could hear the organ
pealing, and the singers responding.
Seven great dogs were sunning themselves on the porch, and as I knew
it was a subject particularly interesting to you, I made minute
inquiries respecting them. Like many other things, they have been much
overstated, I think, by travellers. They are of a tawny-yellow color,
short haired, broad chested, and strong limbed. As to size, I have
seen much larger Newfoundland dogs in Boston. I made one of them open
his mouth, and can assure you it was black as night; a fact which
would seem to imply Newfoundland blood. In fact the breed originally
from Spain is supposed to be a cross between the Pyrenean and the
Newfoundland. The biggest of them was called Pluto. Here is his
likeness, which W. sketched.
[Illustration: _of a large, light-colored dog with medium-short fur at
rest and wearing a broad patterned collar._]
For my part, I was a little uneasy among them, as they went walloping
and frisking around me, flouncing and rolling over each other on the
stone floor, and making, every now and then, the most hideous noises
that it ever came into a dog's head to conceive.
As I saw them biting each other in their clumsy frolics, I began to be
afraid lest they should take it into their heads to treat me like one
of the family, and so stood ready to run.
