180 THE SHEEP. 
material. The fur of the Cashmir Goat is of two sorts : a soft, woolly under- 
coat of greyish hair, and a covering of long silken hairs that serve to defend 
the interior coat from the effects of winter. The woolly under-coat is the 
substance from which the Cashmir shawls are woven, and in order to make 
a single shawl a yard anda half square, at least ten Goats are robbed of their 
natural covering. Beautiful as are these fabrics, they would be sold at a very 
much lower price but for the heavy and numerous taxes which are laid upon 
the material in all the stages of its manufacture, and after its completion upon 
the finished article. Indeed, the English buyer of a Cashmir shawl is forced 
to pay at least a thousand per cent. on his purchase. 
FROM time immemorial the SHEEP has been subjected to the ways of 
mankind, and has provided him with meat and clothing, as well as with many 
articles of domestic use. The whole carcass of the Sheep is as useful as that 
of the ox, and there is not a single portion of its body that is not converted 
= 
HIGHLAND SHEEP, 
to some beneficial purpose. The animal as we now possess it, and which 
has diverged into such innumerable varieties, is never found in a state of ab- 
solute wildness, and has evidently derived its origin from some hitherto 
undomesticated species. In the opinion of many naturalists, the moufion 
saay lay claim to the parentage of our domestic Sheep, but other writers 
have separated the mouflons from the Sheep, and placed them in a different 
enus. 
. Although the Sheep is generally considered to be a timid animal, and is 
really so when forced into adverse circumstances and deprived of its wonted 
liberty, it is truly as bold an animal as can well be seen, and even in this 
country gives many proofs of its courage. If, for example, a traveller comes 
unexpectedly upon ‘a flock of the little Sheep that range the Welsh mountains, 
VAN 
