Story of the Bible Animals: A Description of the Habits and Uses of every living Creature mentioned in the Scriptures, with Explanation of Passages in the Old and New Testament in which Reference is made to themWood, J. G. (John George)
Religion
Story of the Bible Animals: A Description of the Habits and Uses of every living Creature mentioned in the Scriptures, with Explanation of Passages in the Old and New Testament in which Reference is made to them
Wood, J. G. (John George)
Animals in the Bible; Nature in the Bible
"If the sheep's appetite does not come up to their standard, they
use a little gentle violence, folding for them forced leaf-balls and
introducing them into their mouths. The mulberry has the property of
making them fat and tender. At the end of four months the sheep they
had bought at eighty piastres will sell for one hundred and forty,
or will realize one hundred and fifty.
"The sheep is killed, skinned, and hung up. The fat is then removed;
the flesh is cut from the bones, and hung up in the sun. Meanwhile,
the fat has been put in a cauldron on the fire, and as soon as it
has come to boil, the meat is laid on. The proportion of the fat
to the lean is as four to ten, eight 'okes' fat and twenty lean. A
little salt is added, it is simmered for an hour, and then placed in
jars for the use of the family during the year.
"The large joints are separated and used first, as not fit for
keeping long. The fat, with a portion of the lean, chopped fine, is
what serves for cooking the 'bourgoul,' and is called _Dehen_. The
sheep are of the fat-tailed variety, and the tails are the great
delicacy."
This last sentence reminds us that there are two breeds of Sheep
in Palestine. One much resembles the ordinary English Sheep, while
the other is a very different animal. It is much taller on its
legs, larger-boned, and long-nosed. Only the rams have horns, and
they are not twisted spirally like those of our own Sheep, but
come backwards, and then curl round so that the point comes under
the ear. The great peculiarity of this Sheep is the tail, which
is simply prodigious in point of size, and is an enormous mass
of fat. Indeed, the long-legged and otherwise lean animal seems
to concentrate all its fat in the tail, which, as has been well
observed, appears to abstract both flesh and fat from the rest of
the body. So great is this strange development, that the tail alone
will sometimes weigh one-fifth as much as the entire animal. A
similar breed of Sheep is found in Southern Africa and other parts
of the world. In some places, the tail grows to such an enormous
size that, in order to keep so valuable a part of the animal from
injury, it is fastened to a small board, supported by a couple of
wheels, so that the Sheep literally wheels its own tail in a cart.
Frequent reference to the fat of the tail is made in the Authorized
Version of the Scriptures, though in terms which would not be
understood did we not know that the Sheep which is mentioned in
those passages is the long-tailed Sheep of Syria. See, for example,
the history narrated in Exod. xxix. 22, where special details
are given as to the ceremony by which Aaron and his sons were
consecrated to the priesthood. "Thou shalt take of the ram the fat
and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul
above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them."
[Illustration: FLOCKS OF SHEEP BEING TAKEN INTO JERUSALEM.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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