Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/337

 flock crowded down the broken road leading to the fold, followed by their grotesque-looking shepherd and his rough dogs, ''the pet-kids crowding round their master and answering to his call'', we could not help thinking of the antique manners described by the poets, and represented in the pictures of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

"The goats are the most useful domestic animals. Here no other cheese or milk is tasted. Besides, the ricotta, a kind of curd, and junkets, are made of goats'-milk, and, with bread serve many of the country people for food ."

From Athenæus we learn the superior excellence of the goats of Scyros and Naxos.

Virgil (l. c.), after mentioning the use of goats for food, goes on to show their contributions to the weaver.

Cloth'd in their shaven beards and hoary hair, Fence of the ocean spray and nightly air, The miserable seaman breasts the main, And camps uninjur'd press the marshy plain.

Sotheby's Translation.

The last line of this passage of Virgil is quoted by Columella (L. vii. 6.) in speaking of the utility of the he-goat;

For he himself is shorn "for the use of camps and to make coverings for wretched sailors."

Virgil, moreover, has here followed Varro, who writes thus;

As the sheep yields to man wool for clothing, so the goat furnishes hair for the use of sailors, and to make ropes for military engines, and vessels for artificers. they have long shaggy hair. Cilicia (i. e. hair-cloths), and other things of the same kind, are commonly imported from that country. The name Cilicia is
 * * * * * The goats are shorn in a great part of Phrygia, because there