THE SHEEP. 



219 



The Female Goat. 



Cashmir Goat, whose soft silky hair furnishes material for the soft and 

 costly fabrics which are so highly valued in all civilized lauds. 



This animal is a native of Thibet and the neighboring locality, but 

 the Cashmir shawls are not manufactured in the same land which sup- 

 plies the material. The fur of the Cashmir Goat is of two sorts — a soft, 

 woolly under-coat of grayish 

 hair, and a covering of long 

 silken hairs that serves to 

 defend the interior coat from 

 the effects of winter. The 

 woolly under-coat is the sub- 

 stance from which the Cash- 

 mir shawls are woven, and in 

 order to make a single shawl a 

 yard and a half square, at least 

 ten Goats are robbed of their 

 natural covering. Beautiful 

 as are these fabrics, they would 

 be sold at a very much lower price but for the heavy and numerous 

 taxes which are laid upon the material in all the stages of its man- 

 ufacture, and after its completion upon the finished article. Indeed, the 

 buyer of an imported Cashmir shawl is forced to pay at least a thou- 

 sand per cent, on his purchase. 



From time immemorial the Sheep has been subjected to the ways 

 of man, and has provided him with meat and clothing, as well as with 



many articles of do- 

 mestic use. The 

 whole carcase of the 

 Sheep is as useful 

 as that of the ox, 

 and there is not a 

 single portion of its 

 body that is not con- 

 verted to some ben- 

 eficial purpose. The 

 animal, as we now 

 possess it, and which 

 has diverged into 

 such innumerable 

 varieties, is never 

 found in a state of 

 absolute wildness, 

 and has evidently derived its origin from some hitherto undomesticated 

 species. In the opinion of many naturalists, the mouflon may lay claim 



The Cashmir Goat. 



