THE SHEEP. 
3 
HISTORY. 
his maidens drew water,—there the Arab or the wandering Turcoman encamps, and all the scene is like a vivid panorama of the 
past. In the case of the present people of the Desert,—their tents, their journeyings, their household cares, then flocks, tlieii 
camels, their wells,—all inform us with what a matchless fidelity the Sacred History has been told. 
Of the Sheep, we learn that its fleece was used by the Shepherds of Syria for the purposes to which it is now applied, and 
that it was shorn from the skin. “ Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon camels; and he carried away all 
his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting which he had got m Padan-aram, tor to go to Isaac 
his father in the land of Canaan: And Laban went to shear his sheep.” # “ And Judah was comforted, and went up unto 
his sheep-shearers at Zimnath.” f And at a long subsequent period, when the descendants of Judah had become a nation, 
and recovered the Land of Promise, the season of sheep-shearing is referred to as one of rustic labour. Further the wool was 
woven into cloth, which infers an advancement beyond the ruder stages of the arts. The mere barbarian uses for raiment the 
skin of the Sheep or Goat, with its covering of hair, as was practised by the Scythians, by the Gauls and Britons, and at the 
present day by the Kalmucs and other people of Asia, and by the Hottentots and other inhabitants of Southern Africa. When 
cloth is made by barbarous tribes, it is simply by pressing the wool together in a moist state, so as to form felt, as we yet see 
done in the case of hats and beavers; by which means, the fibres adhere, and become intertwined in such a manner as to 
form a species of cloth; and of this simple manufacture were the woollen garments of the rude people in the north of Asia and 
Europe. The use of the distaff and the shuttle infers a considerable advancement m the arts. Yet at this stage, we know, by 
indubitable records, the wandering tribes of Syria had arrived, long ere the golden fleece had been acquiied by Jason, or eie 
Minerva had communicated to her Athenians the gifts of spinning and weaving. 
Besides the spindle and the simple loom of the East, the Syrian Shepherds had, from eaily times, acquiied the knowledge of 
the art of communicating to their cloths and garments those beautiful colours which so much please the eye. The fondness of a 
parent, and his gift of a many-coloured garment to a favoured child, gave rise to a tale which, in beauty and pathos, cannot be 
surpassed. The flesh of the sheep was likewise used, but with that temperance which still distinguishes the people of those coun¬ 
tries in the use of animal food. It was from the milk of their flocks that they derived the chief part of theii daily food. They 
understood the art of curdling the milk of their goats and ewes ; and cheese and butter, with fat and honey, foimed the simple 
repasts of these early shepherds, as of the Kurds, the Turcomans, and Arabs, of the present day. 
Thus early was the Sheep rendered subservient to the uses of man ; and it is not without reason that many look to Western 
Asia as the cradle of the cultivated race; whence it may be supposed to have been diffused as from a centie, and to ha\e followed 
the footsteps of man as an instrument of civilization. 
Sheep probably found their way into Europe by the Hellespont, with the earliest civilization of the inhabitants. At a later 
age the Sheep of Arcadia became the boast of Greece, and innumerable allusions in the writings of her poets, histoi ians, and philo¬ 
sophers, show us in what estimation this gift of the Gods was held. It has been believed that it was at a long subsequent peiiod 
that the Sheep found its way into Italy. Long after Rome was founded, the inhabitants had not yet learned to shear the fleece, 
and until the time of Pliny the ancient practice of plucking it from the skin was not wholly abandoned, so long had the humble 
Shepherds of Syria preceded in their knowledge of necessary arts the future conquerors of their country. The Sheep had been 
early cultivated in Spain, and may have been introduced from Africa, as well as brought from the East. The other parts of 
Europe were a great forest, unfavourable to the cultivation of the Sheep, and their numbers seem to have been always small. 
The Celtic tribes paid more regard to the Ox than to the Sheep, and the flocks of the early inhabitants of Europe never equalled 
in numbers those of the Syrian and other Asiatic shepherds. 
The Sheep differs so little from the Goat, that naturalists can with difficulty assign to each genus its distinctive characters. 
In both, the fur consists of hair mixed with wool, but in the Sheep, under certain conditions, the hair tends to disappear, and the 
wool covers the whole body, except the face and part of the legs. In the Goat, although there is a rudiment of fleecy wool 
beneath the long hair, the wool never, as in the Sheep, prevails over the hair, but always remains the essential covering of the 
body. In the Sheep, there are horns in the male and female, although these often disappear in one or both sexes. They are 
angular, furrowed, spirally twisted, extending in a lateral direction: they usually curve forward, though in certain cases they 
bend backward, as in the Goat, so that this character does not always distinguish the Goat from the Sheep, as naturalists ge¬ 
nerally assume. 
The Domestic Sheep is far inferior to the wild species in agility and strength. When left in a state of liberty, he never 
assumes the wildness of the Argali or the Musmon, nor acquires their boldness and speed. Yet he is not the stupid and in- 
* Genesis, xxxi. 17, 18, 19. 
t Genesis, xxxviii. 12. 
