THE BEARDED GOAT
Now we come to an animal in some ways much like the sheep, but in other ways very little like it. This is the goat, a more vigorous and hardy animal. Unlike the sheep, it wears a beard under its chin. It is not kept much in our country, for it is not well fitted for cold climates, but likes best the warm airs of Southern Europe and Asia and Northern Africa. Some of my readers may only know this animal from taking a ride in a goat carriage when young. Or they may have seen it roaming about in rough places eating anything it could find, for that is the way with the goat. It will even eat tobacco and seems to think this a fine diet.
The wild goat, like the wild sheep, is a dweller in the mountains. It is still more daring than the sheep. No peaks are too high for it to climb, and when chased by the hunter it will make long jumps from one pointed rock to another where no man would dare to follow. No other animal can equal the goat in climbing and leaping. It is even said that some kinds of goats will jump down from a high place and save themselves by falling on their strong horns. But I do not know if anybody ever saw this done.
A well-known wild goat is the Ibex of the Alps. This is a splendid fellow, with long and strong horns but no beard. It used to be very common, but has been shot at so much that very few are left. The Chamois of the Alps is an antelope, but is much like the goat, and is a wonderful jumper. It thinks nothing of leaping over a ravine sixteen or eighteen feet wide, or over a wall fourteen feet high, or of running up and down very steep hills. But the hunters have killed most of these animals also. They think it fine sport to shoot a poor chamois and let it fall to die in a deep abyss where no one can reach it to get its body. There are many who do not think this good sport.
Goats, like sheep, were tamed and made natives of the home and farm very long ago, no one knows how long. The tame kind comes from the wild goat of Southern Asia, but it has grown smaller in size and its horns have become shorter. It was kept in Bible times and by the old Greeks and Romans. These kept it for its milk and the cheese made from it, and also for its meat. The flesh of the kid, or young goat, is very good, but that of the old goat has a strong and unpleasant smell which few people can endure.
The Alpine Ibex. Note the Curiously Knobbed Horns
In modern times Greece and its islands have more goats than they have people and there are many in Malta and Corsica, Italy and Spain. They are not kept largely in the United States, there being about one goat to every fifty sheep.
The goat will thrive where the ox and the sheep would starve, as on rocky hill-sides or thin, poor soil. There is little they will not eat, though you had best not believe that they are fond of old tin cans or any diet of this kind. One bad habit they have is to gnaw the young shoots of trees, of which they are very fond. This makes them deadly to forests, for no young trees can grow where they are kept. The goat has done much to kill out the trees on the hills of southern Europe and Asia and thus to destroy the forests of those regions. It is also fond of the grape-vine, and on this account, in ancient times, it was sacrificed to Bacchus, the god of wine.
The goat is far from being so dull and stupid an animal as the sheep. It makes friends with its keepers and is a cunning and curious brute, though too fond of using its horns. This is often done in play, but in a way that is not very funny, except to those who look on. It will rear up and pretend to attack you with its head and horns, but this is only its way to ask you to play with it. The playful pranks of the kid, or young goat, are often spoken of in poetry. It is a gay little creature, fond of capering about in an amusing way.
In fact the goat is not at all stupid and has often shown sense and cunning. There is a story of a goat that rang a door bell when hungry for its dinner, by hooking its horn in the wire. Another story is of two goats that came face to face on a narrow ridge in the rocks. There was no room to pass and after looking at each other for some minutes one of them lay down and let the other walk over its body. Two men could not have done better than that. The long-eared Syrian goat is trained to do all sorts of tricks. One of these is to balance itself on a pile of small wooden blocks built up to a height of several feet. Fancy a sheep doing this!
Milk Goats in the Alps
If it be asked what are goats kept for, the answer would be, chiefly for their milk. Goats' milk is very rich and is easy to digest and this makes it of much use for sick or feeble persons, to whom cows' milk is at times dangerous. It is very good for consumptive people. In parts of Europe it is thought that certain diseases of horses and cattle will not come when goats are with them, so they are often kept in stables and cow-barns to ward off disease.
Though the goat is a small animal it gives a large quantity of milk, often from four to six quarts a day and sometimes more than this. There are cases where twelve quarts a day have been given. The milk is apt to have a bitter taste and an unpleasant odor, but that comes from the way the animals are fed and kept. With good care and food, the milk will lose this taste. The goats of Syria and Palestine give sweet milk and goats' milk is much used in that part of the world, as it was in the old Bible times. The Arabs have a great dislike for cows' milk.
The milk of the Syrian goats is also very good for making butter and cheese, which are said to be of very fine quality. Much butter and cheese are also made in Europe from goats' milk. These have a special taste of their own, but are much eaten, for one soon gets used to the taste.
Goats are made use of for other things than for their milk, butter, cheese and meat. In early times the goat-skin was used for clothing, and it still is in some countries. The skins are also used by the wandering tribes of Asia as vessels to hold drinking water, and also, tightly sewed and blown out with air, as a sort of boat for crossing or floating down rivers.
In our days the skins of goats are made into leather. Kid skins are used for gloves and shoes, and goat skins for morocco, shagreen, and other fine kinds of leather. The hair is made into ropes which may be kept in the water without injury; also in England to make wigs for judges and others, the hair of white goats being used for this. Goats' hair is also used to make brushes and hats. Knife-handles and other things are made from the horns, and the fat is better than that of the ox for candles.
A Pair of Angora Goats
I must now speak of two kinds of goats of use for their wool. One of these is the Cashmere goat, from the wool of which the fine cashmere shawls are made. This goat has a coat of long, stiff hair, but under this is a very fine, soft, fleecy wool, white or gray in color. Of this each goat yields from one to one and a half pounds. To make a shawl a yard long, takes the wool of twenty to twenty-five goats. They were formerly made in large numbers but in our days few of them are to be seen.
The other wool-yielder is the Angora goat, well known in this country. This yields a thick and fine wool, soft and silky and slightly curled. The color is mostly snow-white, though at times there are dark patches. It is shed in great locks in summer, but soon grows again. During the hot weather the goats are constantly washed and combed, to add to the beauty of their wool. The finest Angora wool, called Mohair, comes from goats a year old. All its value is lost at six years of age.