XV. The Sheep and Its Most Profitable Yield

Among all the kinds of tame beasts in the world, the most profitable beast is the sheep, which in the round of one year gives back well-nigh its own equal in yield. A ewe, at our country's middle price, is worth fifty dahekan.¹ The ewe gives a lamb in the year, which is worth from twenty to twenty-five dahekan; she gives two kash² of cheese and two kash of butter, and that again is worth from sixteen to twenty dahekan; she gives besides one kash of wool, and that, reckoned at five dahekan, makes all together one-and-forty dahekan; and if I count the zhazhik too — the curd of the churned buttermilk — it comes to five-and-forty dahekan.

The sheep is a most blessed creature — meek, home-bred, and guiltless: John the Baptist, the anchorite of the desert, when he saw Jesus, called Him the Lamb of God.³ When Father Abraham had bound Isaac and laid him upon the altar, and was about to slay him, the angel called to him; Abraham looked up, and saw a goodly ram hanging from the sabek tree: God had sent that ram to be the offering in Isaac's stead, and Isaac was delivered.⁴

The sheep is a beast wondrous in increase; and since it is small and of a quiet nature, you may keep them by the thousands in one place. The sheep is a creature at once tender and enduring: in summer it is sore distressed by the heat, above all when its pasture-ground lies in the plain; but the breeze-swept mountains and the mountain-meadows are the sheep's kingdom. Those villages that are built in the plain and have wide meadow-lands, like our own village, have no great fitness for the keeping of sheep; the watery meadows above all breed a kind of sickness in the grazing sheep, and this kind of sickness they call kyapanak — a word, I think, that must be from the Kurds.⁵

But in the mountain villages, which in the main are the dwelling-places of the Kurds, the profit of sheep-keeping is spread very wide; for in this matter the Kurds are wiser than we, and better versed in gain. They keep sheep by the thousands, and know well how to tend them. First, their pasture-grounds are of great compass: grass-rich mountains, flower-grown valleys, glens abounding in springs have fallen to them for a great portion, where their sheep graze in summer; and against winter they can cut and make ready hay, as much as ever they will, in mighty stacks — and they give the sheep hay only when the snow comes down hard and covers all the mountains and the sun-facing slopes. But when the snow is not so deep, and the wind carries off the snows of the sun-facing mountains, the sheep can graze and be filled; and by night too the flocks stay in the bosomed hollows of the mountains, where no wind works and the sun strikes full. These open-air warm places the Kurds call havshi. There are times when the flocks of sheep must go hungry as much as three days in the havshis, till the blizzard wind be past. For this cause I told you that the sheep cannot bear the summer's swelter, but against the colds of winter it contends well. The Lord God, providing for it, has sheltered that poor creature's back with thick wool — and does not that blessed creature's wool warm our own backs?

But we villagers, who keep a few sheep to a house, fold them in winter in the sheep-cote, and at noondays, bringing them out, we give them hay upon the snow, and fold them again.

The sheep-cote must be roomy after the measure of its flock, so that they may lie down and stand up without crowding; it must have its vent-holes in roof and walls, for the sheep needs clean air above all things, being used ever to drink in the breezy air of the mountains. The sheep loves cleanness and dryness: the cote's floor must always be spread with dry, fine litter, which must be gathered and kept in summer. Likewise great care must go to the cote's roof, for drippings are very hurtful to the sheep.

In spring, from the middle of the month of April, the sheep begin to lamb one after another, when, gone abroad, they graze on the new-springing and the old grass. The new-dropped lambs and kids the shepherd loads upon his little donkey and brings at evening to the village. In the month of May, when the pastures come into strength, they begin to milk the sheep. At midday the shepherd brings the sheep to the peratekh — the milking-ground; and you will see the village brides and girls, taking up milk-jugs and pails, come out to the milking-ground, and each one milks her own sheep. Those happy milkmaids deck their heads, and the mouths of the milk-jugs, with the many-colored flowers of spring; they shoulder their jugs, and singing merrily they turn home to the village. And when the milking is done, the lamb-herd, who has kept the lambs and kids penned in a place apart, lets them go — and see then a merry sight: the sheep bleat, the lambs cry; you would say the mother sheep talks with her lamb, and the lamb with its mother; sheep and lambs by the hundred mingle together, till the lambs find their true mothers — for the true mother will never take a stranger lamb beneath her. And wonderful in this is the shepherd's craft: when a lamb strays and cannot find its mother, the shepherd straightway catches the lamb up and gives it to its own mother. And how does he know it, think you? It is enough that he see them once at the birth: the image of the new-dropped lamb and its dam is stamped upon his unschooled mind as it were a photograph, so that among hundreds of sheep he is able with his keen eye to tell apart the lambs dropped early and dropped late, like one another in color though they be. Such shepherds are of the rarest, and they are called pspor — which is to say, keen-sighted and deft.

Let us not forget here, Tornik, that for the shepherd nothing is so needful as the great wolf-throttling sheep-dogs, mighty of frame; it is very truly said that they are the shepherd's bodyguard and his soldiers of the van, that go before the flock and watch the four quarters. If they spy a wolf afar off, see how they charge all in a body, till they have driven him away! And it happens at times, if they overtake him, that they seize the wolf and throttle him; on that day the shepherd gives his valiant dogs a great feast, which is made ready of bread and butter, and they call it chmur. The dogs' common food is milk, which the shepherd pours out for them unstinted into a great wooden bowl — a kot — crumbling the barley bread into it; and those well-mannered dogs range themselves round about and eat without a quarrel. Are they the hungry street-dogs of the city, to fight over a bone? The shepherd's dogs, you must know, are of a noble temper: they bark at nothing idly; but let them see a stranger man near the flock, and they charge upon the instant.

In fine, Tornik, the great sheep-dogs are most serviceable to the flock of sheep: if they be lacking, sore harm comes to the sheep from the wolves, and the shepherd alone cannot defend the flock — above all in time of mist. I know not how it is: the books give the shepherd's name renown enough; why do they never remember the dogs, which are the shepherd's helpers and his strong support? Look well to our sheep-dogs, Tornik: if they sicken and fall spent, they can no more drive off the wolves. Likewise pay the shepherd too his full due, and care for him the more; and now and again give gifts to the pspor shepherd. For do you know? — the shepherd of sheep is not like the shepherd of the people, to shepherd the people without hire, and be patient — like the priests of our villages.

I forgot to speak of this, Tornik: the sheep must be given salt in due season. Sheep love salt beyond measure; and if they eat no salt, there is savor neither in their milk nor in their flesh. True, those villages that lie near the sea of Van or of Archak give them sea-water to drink in the stead of salt; and that is hurtful, for the waters of those seas carry soda in them rather than clean salt — let alone that, drinking of it overmuch at times, they take harm; wherefore salt is held the better and the more wholesome.⁶

The shepherd's life is a life most guiltless and happy, Tornik — though men fancy that shepherds are an unhappy sort of men: cut off from the fellowship-life of mankind, living with the dumb beasts, roaming always upon the desolate mountains, they must grow very dull and heavy-witted.

That opinion is much mistaken. Shepherds know the skill of their own craft thoroughly: they know every kind of sickness of the sheep; they know the remedy and the cure; the virtue of all the flowers of the mountains, and of the roots of plants that are yet unknown, they know by trial.

The shepherd's life is an image of the life of the old patriarchs, wherein we see not men only but maidens too keeping sheep — as Rebecca, Rachel, and the rest.⁷

Those mountain-bred shepherds — yes, they are happy always; they never know sickness, for they drink in the purest of air. And what is their natural, daily food — do you know? They milk the ewes; into that foaming, unadulterated milk they crumble bread, set it in a cold spring, and eat it by the spoonful. They fix no hour nor season for their eating. Sometimes in the night watch they milk, and set the milk in crocks till morning; and you will look, and see cream a finger thick bound upon the face of that milk — and that is the shepherd's little breakfast of a morning. The shepherd's drink is the limpid water of those ice-cold springs; the shepherd's breath is the fragrance of a thousand kinds of flowers, and his nostrils are ravished with their scent. The shepherd's sleep by night is deep and still: he has no soft bed; he stretches himself on the bare-earth pallet, sets a stone for a pillow under his head, and draws his felt cloak — his kapanak — over him; he sleeps, and the dogs stand guard over the flock. And the shepherd's sleep is very light and short: he slumbers half-waking, as it were; for always in his heart there is misgiving and fear lest the wolves, in the night watch, fall suddenly upon the flock. And a wonder it is: sometimes the shepherd sees packs of wolves in his dream, and falls to talking of himself in his sleep and hissing on the dogs, and sometimes leaps bolt upright, all confounded.

The shepherd has not come out of the school of the fine arts, Tornik, but he is a musician of nature's own making: taking his shepherd's pipe, he sits upon a high rock and begins to blow — and do you know how sweet, how tender is that shepherd's pipe? At times, too, the shepherd with his pipe, like a general, gives command to his flock: the scattered he gathers, and calls them to him — above all at the giving of the salt. How the flock presses all as one toward the salt, for the craving whereof sheep would give their very soul!

There is the shepherd's life and work, Tornik; I have drawn it for you in brief. But one question remains: we count the shepherd's life happy, free altogether of the world's tumults; but let us see whether the shepherd too counts himself happy, and is content with his life. Upon this there comes to my mind a fable of the wise; I will tell it you — listen with care.

A rich shepherd, that was master of many sheep and cattle, one day, as his beasts grazed on a meadow near the sea, turned his eye toward the sea, and saw the sea laughing, dimpling under the soft-breathing zephyr, and the merchants' ships, their sails spread and laden full, standing in toward the harbor.

Our untried shepherd, beguiled by this show of fortune, heaves a sigh — ah! — and falls to murmuring against his lot. Would that I too were a merchant, to journey by sea and by dry land from country to country, to hear, to understand the things of the world, and, being a merchant of honor, to make myself a name! What is this life of mine? Night and day I lead my life among beasts; the whole world runs after civilization, and of its taste and savor I know nothing. True it is that my house is filled with every good thing; I enjoy the good gifts of God's giving, and I lack for nothing.

But is eating and drinking alone sufficient for a man? Rich I am — yet what does it profit, that I have remained unknown, a mere common shepherd? If I die, my very memory perishes. Who ever saw a monument raised over a shepherd's grave? I would have my name written up with the great-working men of the world, that the generation to come may read it and remember me.

By this cozening fancy our shepherd was cozened. He went and sold all his beasts, and it made a great sum; he laid it out and bought much merchandise, and carried it away, to go sell it in a strange land. This unlettered, unreckoning shepherd of ours, sitting blithe and merry upon the ship, made his reckonings in his own head: at this price I bought, and at this much higher I shall sell, and at this first venture I shall gain thus much.

But while the shepherd was making merry over this reckoning of his, the sea too began the reckoning of its own nature: it raised a fearful storm, drove the ship and struck her upon the crags of a coast; the ship broke up, and all the merchandise poured into the sea; the poor shepherd, clasping a plank of deliverance, scarce saved himself and came out on the dry land, and afterward came home in another ship — naked and stripped. He that before was master became a hired servant; then little by little he became master of beasts again, and came again to his first estate. One day he went once more to that pasture-ground by the sea's edge, and saw that the sea was laughing before him as before, and the ships coming in laden.

Our shepherd, come back to his wits, says: Eh, cheating sea! I trust your laughter no more — you pulled down my house. But I too have understood something from your trying of me: a shepherd cannot be a merchant; and henceforth I must be content with my lot, and give glory to God.

Have you seen it, Tornik? Let this fable be a lesson to you, lest one day you too, cheated by empty fancy, should say: let me sell my sheep, and sell the gutan-cattle with them; let me sell all my fields — it will make a great sum; let me go to Van and be a merchant; let me leave the villager's estate and become a townsman; let me build fine houses, and now and again go to Stambul and back, and get me the credit and fame of a great merchant — and so on. You do not know, Tornik — you are untried yet — that the storm-trials of city life are more wrecking than the storms of the sea, in goods and in soul alike. Far, far be from the city, and from the city folk's way of living! The safe life is the village, and the just earning is husbandry: the tiller of the soil is not made to be a merchant, nor the plowman a sea-captain or a steersman. God the Provider has set every man in his own place, that they may labor: the townsman in the city, the villager in the village, the captain on the sea, the plowman in the field. Men are happy if they be content with the station wherein they find themselves, and strain not after the thing that is above their strength and above their measure, which they cannot reach. Do not so mistake me, Tornik, as though, when you would go forward, I set a stone before your foot, that you stay moveless where you are. No: my mind is that you go forward within the village life — be a village headman, be master of a farmstead, have sheep by the thousand thousand; but leave not the village and the field; and, remembering always our fable, come not near the sea's edge.

Ending this long lesson, which I have spoken to you upon the care and keeping of sheep, I shall now speak of dealing with the beasts in mercy.