And cats and fishes share the frequent vow!"

Juvenal, 'Sat. xv'.--Badham's Trans.--L.]

In Ethiopia, not only was great veneration paid to the dog, but the
inhabitants used to elect a dog as their king. He was kept in great
state, and surrounded by a numerous train of officers and guards. When
he fawned upon them, he was supposed to be pleased with their
proceedings: when he growled, he disapproved of the manner in which
their government was conducted. These indications of his will were
implicitly obeyed, or rather, perhaps, dictated.

[Among the many strange and wonderful things mentioned by Pliny as being
discovered in Africa, is a people called Ptoembati or Ptremphanae, whose
principal city is Aruspi, where they elect a dog for their king and obey
him most religiously, being governed entirely by the different motions
of his body, which they interpret according to certain signs. (See
Pliny, lib. vi, c. xxx.)--L.]

Even a thousand years after this period the dog was highly esteemed in
Egypt for its sagacity and other excellent qualities; for, when
Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new sect in Greece,
and at Croton, in southern Italy, he taught, with the Egyptian
philosophers, that, at the death of the body, the soul entered into that
of different animals. He used, after the decease of any of his favourite
disciples, to cause a dog to be held to the mouth of the dying man, in
order to receive his departing spirit; saying, that there was no animal
that could perpetuate his virtues better than that quadruped.

It was in order to present the Israelites from errors and follies like