THE GOAT. 193 



One term habitually — and alliteratively — ap- 

 plied to the goat appears, when we regard his 

 feats as a mountaineer, to be singularly inap- 

 propriate. People speak of him as "giddy"; 

 and as long as the word is applied exclusively 

 to his morals (which, judged by our standard, 

 I admit to be something worse than negative), 

 I have not a word to say against it. But if any 

 one ventures to impute physical giddiness to 

 a goat, he lays himself open to a charge of 

 false and malicious libel — false, because it must 

 be obvious to everybody who has seen goats 

 perched aloft in their native haunts, that they 

 can never experience any such feeling ; and 

 malicious, because, the goat being above all 

 things one whose distinct calling it is to climb 

 in perilous places, the charge is one involving 

 professional incapacity. 



In spite of the goat's splendid qualities as a 

 mountaineer, and the toughness and vigour which 

 he evidently possesses, man has made little or 

 no use of him as a beast of burden. Doubtless 

 his small size largely accounts for this ; and he 

 has been, in almost every country where he 

 could have been of use, cut out by the superior 

 muscular capabilities of the donkey and the mule. 



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