of goats has from time immemorial formed a striking feature in the condition of man, and especially of those nations which belong to the Caucasian, or, as Dr. Prichard more properly denominates it, the Iranian or Indo-Atlantic variety of our race[1]. Their habits of sheep-breeding seem no less characteristic than the form of their countenances, a no less essential part of their manner of life than any other custom, by which they are distinguished: and, as all the circumstances, which throw any light upon the question, conspire to render it probable, that the above-mentioned variety of the human race first inhabited part of the high land of central Asia, so it is remarkable, that our domestic sheep and goats may with the greatest probability be referred to the same stock with certain wild animals, which now overspread those regions. The sheep, as has been already observed in chapter I., is regarded as specifically the same with
- ↑ See Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, third edition,
vol. i. pp. 247. 257-262. 303, 304. These nations are characterized by the
oval form of the skull. Their distribution over the face of the earth may be seen
in the Map, Plate VII.
The only remarkable exception to this limitation of ancient sheep-breeding, is
the case of the Chinese. It would appear from the following evidence, that they
had both sheep and goats in ancient times.
The Chinese character for a sacrifice is a compound of two characters, one
placed above the other; the upper one, Yang, is the character for a lamb, the
lower is the character for fire; so that a lamb on the fire denotes a sacrifice. See
Morison's Chinese Dictionary, vol. iii. part i.
According to the mythology of the Chinese, which as well as their written
characters is of high antiquity, one of the four rivers, which rise in Mount Kaen-*lun
and run towards the four quarters of the globe, is called the Yang-Choui, i. e.
the Lamb-River. Thomas Stephens Davies, Esq. in Dr. Robert Thomson's British
Annual for 1837, p. 271. 277.
Yang-Ching, i. e. Sheep-city, was an ancient name of Canton. Morison, p.
55. There is a character for the Goat, which means the Yang of the mountains,
Yang being a general term like the Hebrew , including both sheep and
goats. Ib. p. 61, 62.
In the following passage of Rufus Festus Avienus, who flourished about A. D.
400, we have a distinct testimony, that the ancient Seres, the probable ancestors
of the Chinese, employed themselves in the care of sheep at the same time that
they were devoted to the production of silk.
Gregibus permixti oviumque boumque,
Vellera per silvas Seres nemoralia carpunt.
Descriptio Orbis Terræ, l. 935, 936
