appearance of so much finery
upon the woefully frightened dog, who, when he is first put into his
harness, usually looks the picture of fear. The fact is patent that in
hauling the dog is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts,
that is to say the ordinary dog; with the beautiful dog of the Esquimaux
breed the case is very different. To haul is as natural to him as to
point is natural to the pointer. He alone looks jolly over the work and
takes to it kindly, and consequently he alone of all dogs is the best and
most lasting hauler; longer than any other dog will his clean firm feet
hold tough over the trying ice, and although other dogs will surpass him
in the speed which they will maintain for a few days, he alone can travel
his many hundreds of miles and finish fresh and hearty after all. It is a
pleasure to sit behind such a train of dogs; it is a pain to watch the
other poor brutes toiling at their traces. But, after all it is the same
with dog-driving as with every other thing; there are dogs and there
-are dogs, and the distance from one to the other is as, great as that
between a Thames barge and a Cowes schooner.

The hauling-dogs day is a long tissue of trial. While yet the night is
in its small hours, and the aurora is beginning to think of hiding its
trembling lustre in the earliest dawn, the hauling-dog has his slumber
rudely broken by the summons of his driver. Poor beast! All night long he
has lain curled up in the roundest of round balls hard by the camp;
there, in the lea of tree-stumps or snow-drift, he has dreamt the dreams
of peace and comfort. If the night has been one of storm, the
fast-falling flakes have added to his sense of warmth by covering him
completely beneath them. Perhaps, too, he will remain unseen by the
driver when the fatal moment comes for harnessing-up. Not a bit of it. He
lies ever so quiet under the snow, but the rounded hillock betrays his
hiding place; and he is dragged forth to the gaudy gear of bells and
moose-skin lying ready to receive him. Then comes the start. The pine or
aspen bluff is left behind, and under the grey starlight we plod along
through the snow. Day dawns, sun rises, morning wears into midday, and it
is time to halt for dinner; then on again in Indian file, as before. If
there is no track in the snow a man goes in front on snow-shoes, and the
leading dog, or "foregoer," as he is called, trots close behind him. If
there should be a track, however fai