Arnaut Blowing Smoke at His Dog by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1882.

In two previous posts, The Immovable East and An Unbelievable White Man, I published excerpts from the first-person narrative by Philip J. Baldensperger, published in 1913 about experiences in Palestine during the last half of the 19th century. His sense of humor was acute. Here are the words he imagined that a dog would bark out about life as a canine in an Arab village.

“The sons of Adam disdain dogs, but in many places they raise us up and utilise us. Thus, in the camp where I lived, there were shepherd dogs, with thick fur, and watch dogs, with a smooth coat all over, and the tall, thin greyhounds which are raised for hunting the gazelles on the broad plains of Philistia, near my first home.

I was born in camp, south of Beersheba, and belonged to a family of Azazmeh Arabs. On account of my jet black fur the called me Lail – Night…

These sons of Adam are indeed curious folk. They are fond of cats, who steal their food and are never chased as we are. They permit them to lie on the skirts of women and children, and, worse still, they regard them as holy. Cats catch rats and mice and serpents and lizards, which we disdain – and yet they call them holy! But we are unclean and filthy beasts. They even believe that a cat will be avenged, saying: ‘For killing a cat there is no pardon.’ They tell stories about Soandso, who became blind for having killed a cat, – about another whose leg was broken for having ill-treated a cat. Never, never do they speak of the evil which follows on the ill-treatment of a dog. And though they know and repeat: ‘The cat has got into the habit of eating chickens,’ all they do when it is at fault is to shout: ‘Out! cat … Barra! Biss! … Ah! yes, cats have indeed a good time compared to us. They sleep indoors on mats and on the bedding; they sit by the warm fire; they eat with their masters and mistresses; they are caressed by them and their fur is declared to be as soft as silk…

However notwithstanding all my complaints, I have been better off in the village than in the city, and though I had less to eat than in my first house, I have spent many happy years here. Sometimes the people eat nothing all day, but there is generally plenty for all by night time. Of course, dogs are now chosen as proof that there is no virtue in fasting in Ramadan, as shown by the saying: ‘If hungering led to Paradise, the dogs would enter first.’ However that may be, the other day I found a bone, and as a neighbour’s dog came to snatch it away, I jumped at his throat and growled in Arabic: ‘Hathi ‘adem ti-i-i-i-i!!!’ [This is my bo-o-o-o-ne!] Menacingly, he demanded: ‘Bakam sharata ha-a-a-!’ [What did you pay fo-o-o- o-or it?’] Whereupon, showing my teeth, I barked: ‘Balf! Balf!’ [A thousand! A thousand!] Then he ran off, leaving me in peace.

Excerpt from Philip J. Baldensperger, The Immovable East, London, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1913, pp 171-173.