Strabo in an instructive manner contrasts the Ethiopians with the Egyptians. Having observed, that the boundary between the two nations was the smaller cataract above Syene and Elephantine, he says, that the Ethiopians led for the most part a pastoral life without resources, both on account of their intemperate climate and the poverty of their soil, and also because they were remote from the civilized world; whereas the Egyptians had always lived in a refined manner and under a regular government, settled in fixed habitations, and cultivating philosophy, agriculture, and the arts[242]. Thus do we find the nomad life recurring immediately to the south of Egypt. Strabo further states, that the Ethiopian sheep were small, and instead of being woolly were hairy like goats, on which account the people wore skins instead of woollen cloth[243]. That these sheep were held in some estimation by the Egyptians is, however, manifest from the fact, that in the splendid procession exhibited at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus, there were 130 sheep from Ethiopia, 300 from Arabia, and 20 from Eubœa[244]. Also, that the pastoral habits of the Ethiopians were known to the Romans may be inferred from the allusion, which Virgil makes to them in his Tenth Eclogue (l. 64-68.): No toils of ours can change the cruel god, Though we should flee him through each new abode; Whether we drink, where chilling Hebrus flows, And winter reigns amid Sithonian snows; Or, where the elms beneath hot Cancer bend, Our Ethiopian sheep we fainting tend. [242] Strabo, l. xvii. c. 1. § 3. p. 476, 477. ed. Siebenkees. [243] Cap. 2. § 1. 3. p. 621. 626. Strabo’s account is illustrated and confirmed by the traveller, Dr. Shaw, who describes a variety of sheep in the interior of Africa with “fleeces as coarse and hairy as those of the goat.”--Travels in Barbary, part iii. chap. 2. § 1. [244] Callixenus Rhodius, apud Athenæum, l. v. p. 201. ed. Casaub. We find, that the people of Libya had attained to some distinction in the management of flocks. What Diodorus says of the Egyptian sheep is asserted by Aristotle of those of Libya, viz. that they produced young _twice_ in the year[245]. That sheep-breeding had extended hither in very early times appears from a passage in the Odyssey, which, however, in consequence of the remoteness of the situation and the imperfect knowledge of geography in the time of the writer, is mixed with fable, inasmuch as it represents, that the ewes brought forth not only twice, but even _three_ times in the year, and that the lambs were immediately provided with horns[246].