, 1916-03-29
The Romantic Story of How They Can
There.
A Natural History Treasure in our NJ
Colony.

Colony.
General Botha has sent us such good news
from Africa that we owe him some return,
aud this will probably be news to him; and
perhaps his little niece, who reads "My Maya
zine" will send it on to HIM. Up in the high
lands of his conquered colony is a flock
of the most precious sheep in the world,
Che Karakul sheep, which although not actn-
ally objects of worship in their native land,
are practically sacred, and are guarded as
i~3alously as quinine and rubber we're guarded
by the peoples of Peru aud Braz ].
The story of the presence of these sheep
in Africa. far from their cradle in the high
living plateaux of Central Asia, is something
OF a romance. The Karakuls are descended
from Asiatic sheep belonging to a species
now practically extinct. They live during
the summer in the high-lying Asian deserts,
on heritage growing III tufts amid the salt
sauds. They live amid hurricanes aud
sandstorms, and have deem equipped by Ma
ture for a special environment. Their lips
are long aud iDcurve so that they can be
tightly sealed against the horrible sands that
blow. They are born will an incompatible
fur-bIack, ~lustrous, tightly curled, without
a white spot.
4uS 6u0OD are OlS Ii S'1OAS1 hOhFN Lu
flesh, and have great wide tails which weigh
as much as fifteen pounds each. They live,
in time of privation, on tbs fat contained in
their tails, as a camel lives upon its hump
and a alternating animal upon is accumulat-
ed fat. The Karakuls bear the appalling
summer heat of the Asian desert, yet endure
with equal fortitude the terrible cold of
freezing winter, aud they are supposed to
be the hardest domesticated animals in exis-
tence. The milk of the ewes is said to be
incomparably rich, and this milk when the
lambs are weaned, is used to make the fam
Gus Brinza cheese, esteemed as one of the
greatest Injuries in Russia. The milk of
each eve makes from thirty to forty pounds
of this cheese each hummer. But it ls the
fnr, especially of the lambs, which dlstln-
guishes the Karakul sheep above all others.
Bokhara is the great home of the sheep,
which get their name, Notwithstanding
black lake-from a black lake in the town Of
the same name.
Now, to get these sheep from Bokhara had
been for years impossible. Europeans eau
not travel safely in the land, aud on the
frontiers, while it is easy to get imitation
cross-bred Karakuls, the genuine sheep has
been almost unobtainable. However, through
the influence of Russia, which really rules
Bokhara, the Germans were able to buy a
flock of 274 of the best type. These were
taken an enormou distance, from Central
Asia to Soth- West Africa. AS soon as they
landed the majority died, but some lived,
and they were sent into the high plateaux of
Damara Land aud N%anaqua Lsnd, and there
they have thriven and multiplied.
That flock, one of the most valuable in
the world outside Bokhara itself, is now in
existence in our new colony, and we shall be
able to get some of the sheep. We have one
Bokhara-bred Karakul sheep in thiscoantry,
and one only. A second was ready to come
to us from the Russian port of Libau just
before the war kroke out, but the Baltic was
closed to our ships. and the poor Karakul.
child of the mountainous deserts, could not
live in thin sea air of Libau, and there it has
died. General Boths will surely send us
some now.--Zhe Little Paper