Ramsay, William Mitchell: Impressions of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings (London, 1897)

272 turkey's debt to her predecessors

strength or the skill of Christian allies that the
Turks have vanquished the Christians ;

But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break their shield, however broad.

And so it continues to be at the present day, when
German intellect is pointing the way to Turkish
victory over Greece.

It is perhaps the case, as some maintain, that
the introduction of the Angora goat, with its
beautiful silky fleece, into the country is due to
the nomads ; and, indubitably, the breeding and
keeping of these goats is to a considerable extent
in their hands. But it might be as reasonable to
maintain that the nomads brought the sheep into
the land, on the ground that they now have in their
hands most of the flocks. I should be disposed to
demand some better evidence, before accepting it
as a fact that the Angora goat was unknown to
the ancient inhabitants of the plateau. To take a
parallel case, it is certain that the glossy black
wool of the Laodicean sheep, and the violet-dark
wool of the sheep of Colossae, which are celebrated
under the Roman Empire and earlier, are no longer
produced. Pococke in the first half of the eight-
eenth century saw a great many black sheep ;
Chandler saw only a few black and glossy in the
early part of the present century ; my experience