Page 28 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Special Edition 5

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 2 8

The second anecdote highlights the power of the feelings that the Sloughi can have for his
master. The events that it recounts took place in Morocco when the R. P. de Jenlis was
about to be absent for some time, as he quite often did.

Among all his Sloughis, a magnificent dam, “Tarda”, was his favorite; the bitch in return
lavished him with deep and jealous affection. The day before departure, “Tarda” had the
intuition that her master was going to abandon her. She remained sad and worried,

refusing to eat and drink. When night came, she cried incessantly, disturbing the
darkness with her desperate call, with sinister accents like a farewell song pierced by
sobs. And for days and many nights, after her master had left her, the dog remained
prostrate, persisting in not eating, and only coming back to life to moan about her sorrow
or howl her misfortune. It was only little by little that she seemed to calm down, under
the attention of her caregiver, but without letting go of a vague sadness and an infinite

weariness which made her pitiful. She only regained her liveliness and cheerfulness many
months later, on her master's return, which she celebrated with all her ardor and all her
newfound joy.

Yet, the most astonishing thing of the story, is that at the time of leaving, the R .P. de
Jenlis was completely unaware that his absence would continue for a long period; he

believed in a brief trip as he was accustomed to making, from time to time, without
"Tarda" ever worrying about it. But this time, she had foreseen, with strange accuracy, the
long separation which was to keep her away from her master, and which in fact, against

all prediction, lasted several months. And, without any other means of trying to make
herself understood, the dog, warned by a mysterious instinct, striking some secret sense
deep in her delicate being, proclaimed to the insensible echoes of the great desolate
“bled”*, her heartbreaking and vain despair.

Besides the new proof of sensitivity
in the Sloughi that this curious
adventure teaches us, we cannot
fail to unmask a real as well as
inexplicable case of premonition,
according to which “Tarda” alone
had perceived, with astonishing
acuity, the long absence of her

master, of which no one, not even
him, suspected the real duration.

*backcountry.