AND LOWER EGYPT. 25! 



covered again to the very tip of the snout. This 

 species of bushy curled hair, through which they 

 see with difficulty, gives them a very singular 

 physiognomy. Their colour for the most part is 

 brown bordering upon red, the shade of which be- 

 comes clearer as they grow older. Some are blacky 

 and othersof a yellowish white. 



Although these animals grow to an astonishing 

 size, yet their voice is very feeble, and their bleat- 

 ing is seldom audible ; they are, notwithstanding, 

 extremely petulant. The rams are butting conti- 

 nually, and even when there are no females among 

 them. Their skin is used for beds by most of the 

 Egyptians. Besides the thickness of the fleece, 

 which renders this kind of mattress less hard, they 

 believe that in sleeping upon them they are secure 

 against the stings of scorpions, which they say 

 never go upon wool, or apparently they would get 

 entangled by it. One of these skins of a full 

 length, that is to say, long and broad enough to 

 serve a man as a mattress, was sold as high as twen- 

 ty-four franks (a pound sterling), whilst the whole 

 animal alive, but stripped of its fleece, only cost 

 from seven to eight franks, from 5^. lOi/. io 6s. Zd, 



The second race of Egyptian rams, also to be 

 found in Nubia and Abyssinia, is very probably 

 that which BufFon has described uader the denomi- 

 nation 



