Goats have been taught to perform a great many wonderful exploits. The celebrated traveler, Dr. Clarke, gives a very curious account of a goat which he came across in Arabia. This goat would perform some most surprising feats of dexterity.
"We met," he says, "an Arab with a goat, which he led about the country to exhibit, in order to gain a livelihood. He had taught this animal, while he accompanied its movements with a song, to mount upon little cylindrical blocks of wood, placed successively one above another, and resembling in shape the dice belonging to a backgammon table.
In this manner the goat stood, first on the top of two; afterward of three, four, five, and six, until it remained balanced upon the summit of them all, elevated several feet above the ground, and with its fore feet collected upon a single point, without throwing down the disjointed fabric on which it stood. The diameter of the upper cylinder, on which its four feet alternately remained until the Arab had ended his ditty, was only two inches, and the length of each was six inches.
The most curious part of the performance took place afterward; for the Arab, to convince us of the animal's attention to the turn of the air, sometimes interrupted the ordinary da capo, or repeat, and as often as he did so, the goat tottered, and appeared uneasy. When the man suddenly stopped, in the middle of his song, the animal fell to the ground."
