Sometimes the shepherds and others who lived in pastoral districts made themselves coats of the skins of the Sheep, with the wool still adhering to it. The custom extends to the present day, and even in many parts of Europe the sheep-skin dress of the shepherds is a familiar sight to the traveller. The skin was sometimes tanned and used as leather, but was considered as inferior to that of the goat. Mr. Tristram conjectures that the leathern "girdle" worn by St. John the Baptist was probably the untanned sheep-skin coat which has been just mentioned. So it is said of the early Christians, that "they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented," the sheep-skins in question being evidently the rude shepherd's coats. * * * * * The horn of the ram had a national value, as from it were made the sacred trumpets which played so important a part in the history of the Jewish nation. There is no doubt that the primitive trumpets were originally formed either from the horn of an animal, such as the ox, the large-horned antelopes, the sheep, and the goat, and that in process of time they were made of metal, generally copper or silver. References are frequently made in the Bible to these trumpets, for which there were different names, probably on account of their different forms. These names are, however, very loosely rendered in our version, the same word being sometimes translated the "cornet," and sometimes the "trumpet." [Illustration: SOUNDING THE TRUMPETS IN THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.] The jubilee year was always ushered in by the blasts of the sacred trumpets. "Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land" (Lev. xxv. 9). Then there was the festival known as the Feast of Trumpets. "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you" (Numb. xxix. 1). One of these trumpets is now before me, and is shown in the accompanying illustration. In length it measures eighteen inches, _i.e._ a cubit, and it is formed entirely in one piece. As far as I can judge, it is made from the left horn of the broad-tailed Sheep, which, as has already been remarked, is not spiral, but flattish, curved backwards, and forming nearly a circle, the point passing under the ear. This structure, added to the large size of the horn, adapts it well for its purpose. In order to bring it to the proper shape, the horn is softened by heat, and is then modelled into the very form which was used by the Jewish priests who blew the trumpet before the ark. [Illustration: RAM'S HORN TRUMPET.] At the present day one such trumpet, at least, is found in every Jewish community, and is kept by the man who has the privilege of blowing it. * * * * *