THE CASHMIR GOAT, 179 
sprang as to appear like different species. For the present, we will turn to 
the common Goat of Europe, with which we are all so familiar. This animal is 
often seen domesticated, especially in and about stables, as there is a prevalent 
idea that the rank smell of the Goat is beneficial to horses. Be this as 
it may, the animal seems quite at home in a stable, and a very firm 
friendship often arises between the Goat and one of the horses. Sometimes 
it gets so petted by the frequenters of the stables, that it becomes presump- 
tuous, and assaults any one whom it may not happen to recognise as a 
friend. Happily, a Goat, however belligerent he may be, is easily conquered 
if his beard can only be grasped, and when he is thus captured, he yields 
at once to his conqueror, assumes a downcast air and bleats in a very pitiful 
tone, as if asking for mercy. 
In its wild state the Goat is a fleet and agile animal, delighting in rocks 
and precipitous localities, and treading their giddy heights with a foot as 
sure and an eye as steady as that of the chamois or ibex. Even in domesti- 
CASHMIR GOAT. 
cated life, this love of clambering is never eradicated, and wherever may 
be an accessible roof, or rock, or even a hill, there the Goat may be 
generally found. 
The varieties of the Goat are almost numberless, and it will be impossible 
to engrave, or even to notice, more than one or two of the most prominent 
examples. One of the most valuable of these varieties is the celebrated 
Cashmir Goat, whose soft silky hair furnishes material for the soft and costly 
fabrics which are so highly valued in all civilized lands. 
This animal is a native of Thibet and the neighbouring locality, byt the 
Cashmir shawls are not manufactured in the same land which supplies the 
N 2 
