46 HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 



roads and stations of the Romans, though they must be 

 referred to a comparatively recent period of history, are 

 usually found upon the high grounds. In this country 

 when it was first discovered by Europeans, the most civil- 

 ized races of the natives were found upon the mountains ; 

 and generally speaking, when we look at the whole earth, 

 we find that, with the exception of the lines of the shores, 

 and the banks of the larger rivers, the people inhabited the 

 mountains, while the low grounds were abandoned to 

 tangled forests and wild animals, 



This circumstance naturally connects itself with the goat 

 and the sheep as mountaineers, and renders it probable that 

 both of these were domesticated at an earlier period than 

 the ox, which, inhabiting lower down, may not have been 

 brought under the dominion of man until the pastoral life 

 had been partially changed for the agricultural. Accord- 

 ingly we find that these animals make an important figure 

 in the mythologies of many ancient nations. Pan, which 

 is a symbolical personification of the productive energies of 

 nature, was furnished with the attributes of a goat; in like 

 manner the Lybian Jupiter was furnished with the horns 

 of a ram. The ^Egis, which was equally the breast-plate 

 or shield of Jupiter and of Minerva, was originally nothing 

 but a goat's skin ; and by the fable of those two divinities, 

 the goat was thus connected with the supreme power and 

 supreme wisdom, which shows the estimation in which the 

 character of the animal was held. Under the Jewish 

 rituals the goat was an important animal, and used as the 

 appropriate symbol of atonement in the splendid rites 

 ordained by the Supreme Lawgiver himself. 



The skin of the goat appears to have been early used as 

 an article of clothing; and the first cloth, or rather felt, 

 which was made by the northern nations, appears to have 

 been chiefly formed of the hair of this animal, mixed'with 

 shorter fur matted together, and stiffened with the gum of 



