street where the hotel is, and must go further. In the Grand Rue the

dogs have a sort of air of being on the lookout--an air born of being

obliged to get out of the way of many carriages every day--and that

expression one recognizes in a moment. It does not exist upon the face

of any dog without the confines of that street. All others sleep

placidly and keep no watch. They would not move, though the Sultan

himself passed by.

In one narrow street (but none of them are wide) I saw three dogs lying

coiled up, about a foot or two apart. End to end they lay, and so they

just bridged the street neatly, from gutter to gutter. A drove of a

hundred sheep came along. They stepped right over the dogs, the rear

crowding the front, impatient to get on. The dogs looked lazily up,

flinched a little when the impatient feet of the sheep touched their raw

backs--sighed, and lay peacefully down again. No talk could be plainer

than that. So some of the sheep jumped over them and others scrambled

between, occasionally chipping a leg with their sharp hoofs, and when the

whole flock had made the trip, the dogs sneezed a little, in the cloud of

dust, but never budged their bodies an inch. I thought I was lazy, but I

am a steam-engine compared to a Constantinople dog. But was not that a

singular scene for a city of a million inhabitants?

These dogs are the scavengers of the city. That is their official

position, and a hard one it is. However, it is their protection. But

for their usefulness in partially cleansing these terrible streets, they

would not be tolerated long. They eat any thing and every thing that

421

The Innocents Abroad