iii. Fhe high Estimation of Broad-tailed Sheep. 
SSS ES 
tors) those most valuable animals; a small number whereof 
had been, here, in the hands of a very few persons. It would | 
now be as difficult as unnecessary, to enumerate the ‘indivi- 
duals who possess them. Instead of its being a rarity for 
me to see fine sheep of this breed, they have already become 
familiar: and that by an accumulation so rapid, as to appear 
a kind of magical delusion. Accessions must continue to ar- 
rive ; for speculation is alive and active. Their depressed 
owners must part with precarious property ; and the patriots 
of Spain willingly assist in thinning their country, of these 
subjects of monopolies, which have long been its scourge.— 
The laws and regulations in Spain, on the subject of sheep, 
have ever been oppressive on the people, and injurious to the 
agriculture of the country. The flocks and the system will dis- 
solve together. Whatever may be the final fate of that country, it 
will be, for along time, too much disturbed, to suffer the flocks, 
or the system, to remain on their former establishments. 
Regaled as I have been by my excursion among the merz- 
nos, I return, however, not only with undiminished, but with 
increased pleasure, to my Tunisians ; and the old author who 
celebrates their progenitors. He cites Herodotus b. 3. c. 115. 
Aristotle’s account of Syria, Hist: b. 8. c. 28. Diodorus b. 2. . 
Pliny b. 8. c.48 ; and other antient authors (several whereof 
I have examined) as proofs of the description and good quali- 
ties of this race of sheep, in times the most remote. We, in 
our day, have the opportunity of testing, by easy and agreeable 
experiment, the verity of these old authors. We may com- 
pare them, too, with the more humble, but equally just, 
proofs from the practical witnesses I have produced. I took 
Scheuchzer’s advice. He tells us “that to explain such texts, 
and others like them, we must not only enter the store- 
houses of grammatical and other learning, but we must go 
into the slaughter-houses of the butchers ;—“ intranda lani- 
onum laboratoria,” as well as into more elevated anatomical 
theatres. 
