Goat hair

“ The goat, as is the case with some other quadrupeds, if confined to a country, which is hot in summer and very cold in winter, is always protected in the latter season by an additional covering of fine wool beneath its long hair. A specimen of the Syrian goat in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow shows both the hair and the wool. In Kerman and Cashmere this very fine wool is obtained by combing the goats in the spring, when it becomes loose; and, having been spun into yarn, it is used to make the beautiful shawls brought from those countries. ”

“ Fresh hides stripped from the rank he-goat, besmeared inside as well as out with old tallow and strong bark tan, filled from an impure well at Sagállo, tossed, tumbled, and shaken during two entire nights on a camel’s back, and brewed during the same number of intervening days under a strong distilling heat—poured out an amalgamation of pottage of which the individual ingredients of goat’s hair, rancid mutton fat, astringent bark, and putrid water, were not to be distinguished. ”

“ In our days the skins of goats are made into [164] 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. ”

“ A short blue cotton cloth, with a fringe of tinsel and tufts of goat's hair dyed red, is passed over the loins in front only: they also wear brass armlets, and necklaces of cowries, coral, amber, ivory, and boar's teeth. The women draw a fringed blue cloth tightly across the breast, and wear a checked or striped petticoat. They are less ornamented than the men, and are pleasing looking; their hair is straight, and cut short over the eyebrows. ”

“ Curled horsehair is sometimes used for stuffing panels, and is found very cool for an animal with a tender back or shoulder; goat hair is very suitable for stuffing. Neither this nor horsehair is so liable to be clogged by sweating as sheep’s wool, though the latter, when dry, containing but very little oil and being well carded, is used extensively in country places. ”

“ Goat skin always shows small hair dots in groups all over its surface; it is not quite smooth like calf, and also it shows certain structural striations. In early goat bindings both these marks show clearly, and until the time of Roger Payne in the eighteenth century, the leather was left in its natural state so far as surface marks went.
Italian bookbinders at an early date saw the beauty of natural sunk lines on goat skin, and accentuated them by [177] rubbing in gold leaf. On such bindings the markings on the leather show as fine gold lines ”

“ Silver rings and bracelets of a very poor character, and glass bangles, complete their toilet, and the commoner class and Bedou women weave a strong cloth in narrow strips of goat-hair, which they wrap in an inelegant fashion round their hips to keep them warm, sometimes as their only garment. ”

“ The strong smell of the goat does not proceed from his flesh but his skin. These animals are not permitted to grow old, or perhaps they might live to ten or twelve years; but it is usual to kill them as soon as they cease to multiply, because the older they are the worse is their flesh. Both male and female goats have horns, with a very few exceptions; they vary very much in the colour of their hair: it is said that those which are white, and have no horns, give the most milk, and that the black ones are the strongest. ”

“ An old goat, one of the parents of the Red House flock, had disappeared during the previous winter, and they had fancied that he must have fallen into the stream and been swept away in a freshet that happened when he vanished. But now, in a little green hollow rimmed with heath and granite, they found all that was left of the creature—wisps of iron-grey hair, horns attached to his skull, a few scattered bones picked clean by the carrion crows and the hollow skeleton of his ribs with young grasses sprouting through it. ”

“ This bushy beard gives to a man the somewhat simpering aspect of an old goat; but still, it would seem that many of our beaux are delighted at making such a figure. Their great desire seems to be to run to hair. ”

“ The goat, like the sheep, furnishes both milk and suet in great abundance. Their hair, though coarser than wool, can serve the purpose of making very good cloth; their skins are more valuable than those of the sheep; and the flesh of a young kid nearly resembles that of lamb. These auxiliary species are wilder and more robust than the principals. The ass and the goat do not require near so much care as the horse and the sheep, for they every where find means of support, and browze equally on the most coarse as on the most delicate plants ”

“ Warp, coarse wool or goat’s hair; each thread encircled by a knot is equally prominent at back, or one is slightly depressed below the other. Weft, wool, of medium diameter, or occasionally wool mixed with goat’s hair. A thread of weft crosses twice between every two rows of knots. Pile, wool, of medium length. Border, three stripes. Sides, a goat’s hair double selvage of three or four cords. Both ends, a broad web of reddish brown colour through which run several narrow lines or several narrow stripes, and a long fringe. Texture, stout. Weave at back is moderately coarse. ”

“ Only the kid is prized for eating, especially in the South, where the aromatic vegetation of the hills takes away its natural tastelessness. The goat’s fleece, though used for certain coarse fabrics, is not of much importance, either, and cannot in any way take the place of sheep’s wool. But a breed native in the hilly regions of Central Asia, the Cashmere goat, furnishes a down of incomparable fineness, from which precious stuffs are made. This goat, under a thick fur of long hair, bears an abundant down that protects it from the rigors of cold and is shed naturally every spring. ”

“ The horns of the sheep have a spiral direction, while those of the goat have a direction upward and backward; the sheep, except in a single wild variety, has no beard, while the goat is bearded; the goat, in his highest state of improvement, when he is made to produce wool of a fineness unequalled by the sheep—as in the Cashmere breed—is mainly, and always, externally covered with hair, while the hair on the sheep may, by domestication, be reduced to a few coarse hairs, or got rid of altogether ”

“ The water is carried in large entire skins of the goat, which they tan with the pounded bark of a mimosa, very common in the jungle near the town, and which, moistened with a little water, they rub well into the skin. If it be designed to be divested of the hair, the skin, before being tanned, is left for two or three days until slight putrefaction has commenced, and the hair is then easily detached. The most laborious occupation of the women is grinding the jowaree, or millet, which is imported into Tajourah from Aden and the Persian Gulf. ”

“ Male quadrupeds of many kinds differ from the females in having more hair, or hair of a different character, on certain parts of their faces. Thus the bull alone has curled hair on the forehead. (15. Hunter’s ‘Essays and Observations,’ edited by Owen, 1861. vol. i. p. 236.) In three closely-allied sub-genera of the goat family, only the males possess beards, sometimes of large size; in two other sub-genera both sexes have a beard, but it disappears in some of the domestic breeds of the common goat; and neither sex of the Hemitragus has a beard. ”

“ The Mongolian goat has a very soft silk underwool, and after the long top hair is removed it is dressed and imported and erroneously named mouflon. The colour is a light fawn, but it is so pale that it lends itself to be dyed any colour. ”

“ The dress of the men consists generally of a single goat-skin, which depends from the left shoulder. It is varied with antelope-hide with the hair scraped off, excepting a margin of three or four inches wide round the borders. The wives are clothed with cow-hides, which are often beautifully tanned and soft: slave women, in the absence of a goat-skin, wear a strip of leather round the waist, from which a narrow piece of bark cloth depends in front and back, or a very limited apron. ”

“ The distinction between wool and hair is rather arbitrary than natural, wool being in reality a modified form of hair, and similar to it in its chemical composition. It is characterized by a greater fineness in its fibre, by its softness and pliability, and also by being more scaly than common hair, which gives it its special felting property. The sheep, the llama, the Angora goat, and the goat of Tibet, are animals from which most of the wool used in manufactures is obtained, the last named furnishing the fine wool from which Cashmire shawls are made. ”

“ The colour varies from dirty white to dark-brown, but when pure-bred is never black, which indicates eastern blood. Most European countries possess more than one description of the common goat. In the British Isles there are two distinct types, one short and the other long haired. In the former the hair is thick and close, with frequently an under-coat resembling wool. The horns are large in the male, and of moderate size in the female, flat at the base and inclining outwards. ”

“ As no kids or he-goats are admitted, the scene is very orderly, and there is none of the deafening bleating which usually characterises large flocks.
"These mountain goats are a solemn set, and by the gravity of their demeanour excite a suspicion that they have had no youth, and never were kids. They need no herdsman to bring them home in the evening, for, fully sensible of the danger of remaining unprotected, they hurry homewards of their own accord as soon as the sun begins to decline."
Like the wool of the sheep, the hair of the Goat is used for the manufacture of clothing ”

“ The cheapest of the "downy" furs, which are the proper sort for the climate, is the brown goat, that constantly reminds its owner of the economy practiced, by its weight and characteristic strong smell, though it has the merit of being very warm. Next come the various grades of red fox fur,--those abundantly furnished with hair,--where the red is pale and small in area, and the gray patches are large and dark, being the best. ”

“ Several herds of goats exist in Palestine, the most valuable of which is the Mohair Goat, and the most common the Syrian Goat. These, however dissimilar they may be in appearance, are only varieties of the ordinary domestic animal, the former being produced artificially by carefully selecting those specimens for breeding which have the longest and finest hair. ”

“ The Kashmir shawls are made of the finest goats' hair. Most of this very soft hair is obtained from the under-fur of goats kept in Tibet, and by the Kirghiz in Central Asia. Only a small quantity, averaging three ounces, is produced yearly by each animal. The wool is purchased by middlemen, and taken to Kashmir for manufacture.
In India the goat reaches perhaps the highest point of domestication. The flocks are in charge of herd-boys, but the animals are so docile that they are regarded with no hostility by the cultivators of corn and cereals. Tame goats are also kept throughout Africa. ”

“ A fearful thing stood at the cloister's end,
And eyed him for a while, then 'gan to wend
Adown the cloisters, and began again
That rattling, and the moan like fiends in pain.
And as it came on towards him, with its teeth
The body of a slain goat did it tear,
The blood whereof in its hot jaws did seethe,
And on its tongue he saw the smoking hair;
[Pg 183] Then his heart sank, and standing trembling there,
Throughout his mind wild thoughts and fearful ran,
"Some fiend she was," he said, "the bane of man."
Yet he abode her still, although his blood
Curdled within him: ”

“ The Hair of this Creature is very fine, and extreamly white, and it hangs down from their Bodies to the Ground. The Goat-herds do not sheer, but kemb it off, and it is almost as fine as Silk. These Goats are often washed in the neighbouring Rivers, and feed upon the Grass growing there, which is very tender and dry, and that certainly contributes much to the Fineness of their Wool ”

“ A great number of breeds now exist. A most important variety, formed into a breed by artificial selection, is the Angora goat, where almost the whole body is enveloped in that long, silky, white hair which is so valuable. The Angora goat has been introduced into the United States, Cape Colony, and Australia. The Cashmere goat, from Tibet and Bokhara, is almost equally valuable, furnishing the white to brown hair used in making Cashmere textiles, especially the famous Cashmere shawls. ”

“ In the winter coat the hair is long and pendent, elongated into a short beard on the sides of the lower jaw behind the chin; and it is also longer than elsewhere on the neck and the chest; at the base of the long hair is a thick growth of short and woolly under-fur. ”

“ It was sold by its callous owner when it began to get big, and no doubt became pork shortly afterwards. Goats (nyanya) are kept in large numbers, white goats with long hair being particularly valuable. This hair is sold to be dyed red and used for all kinds of ornaments. The wretched animals used to be plucked alive, one goat giving several crops. But this has now been stopped and the hair is cut off. ”