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are generally placed within the shelter of temporary enclosures, built up 

 as a rule out of the thorny bushes common to the country. This practice 

 appears to be absolutely necessary as a protection against the jackals, which 

 do quite as much damage as our own wild dogs. For the protection of the 

 sheep the shepherd is always provided with watchdogs and gun and ammu- 

 nition. Whether our Merinos, long accustomed to roam at their ease, would 

 readily accustom themselves to this species of treatment, is of course open to 

 question. To overcome the native shepherd's ineradicable prejudice against 

 tailless sheep is another difficulty to be faced. Before coming to Australia I well 

 recollect placing with a native shepherd four Merino rams, with instructions 

 to use them freely. At lambing-time we had the grand total of two cross- 

 bred lambs. The Merino rams, said the shepherd, fled whenever he approached 

 the ewes to help them in their work. On the face of it the reason given 

 appeared plausible enough, were it not for his unconcealed dislike for the 

 tailless foreigners. 



GOATS. 



These hardy foragers are invaluable to the more or less thriftless Oriental 

 graziers. In the towns, on the other hand quite as much in the other cities 

 of the Levant as in Tunis goats almost entirely supersede the milch cows 

 of Europe. Twice a day the tinkle of their bells is heard through the streets, 

 and the milkman milks the goat at the citizen's doorstep and under his eye. 

 One hears no complaints of watered milk or insanitary milking sheds. The 

 taste of goat's milk is characteristic, but in time one gets used to it. 



In the back country, particularly in the hilly sites of the drier districts, 

 covered with brushwood and low shrubs, and more or less destitute of herbage, 

 the goat is invaluable to the Arab. Indeed, it will not only subsist, but even 

 thrive, in localities in which all other types of livestock, with the solitary 

 exception, perhaps, of camels, would starve. There are many, however, 

 who pretend that the goat has been to Tunisia a curse in disguise. Just as 

 the camel J now held responsible for the destruction of many of the shrubs 

 of the Egyptian desert, so the present treeless condition of Tunisia is very 

 generally attributed to the ravages of the goat. In so far as young trees and 

 shrubs are concerned, the passage of a flock of goats will do quite as much 

 damage as a bush fire. In their habitual pasture grounds no young tree can 

 ever be expected to rear its head ; and many are the naked, barren hills in 

 Tunisia that bear eloquent testimony to the irrepressible activity of the goat. 

 Summer bush fires are not unknown in Tunisia, ; many of them, it is stated, are 

 started by the native owners of flocks of goats, so that later on their flocks 

 may be able to browse in comfort on the stunted growth of the charred stumps. 

 This is a severe indictment of the goat as a civilising influence ; nevertheless, 

 flocks of goats must long continue to represent one of the principal sources 

 of wealth of the nomadic pastoral Arab. Indeed, I notice that goats are 



