216 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



extraordinary for its achievements and for its 

 shortcomings and evanescence; but it never 

 developed a metal epoch corresponding to, say, 

 the bronze age of the Mediterranean, and al- 

 though the small camel, the llama, was tamed 

 in South America, in North America, the ox, 

 sheep, white goat, and reindeer were never made 

 servants of man, as befell so many correspond- 

 ing beasts of Eurasia. 



In this last respect the American Indians 

 stayed almost on the level of the African tribes, 

 whose native civilization was otherwise far less 

 advanced. The African buffalo is as readily 

 tamed as its Asiatic brother; the zebra was as 

 susceptible of taming as the early wild horse 

 and ass; the eland is probably of all big rumi- 

 nants the one that most readily lends itself to 

 domestication. But none of them was tamed 

 until tribes owning animals which had been 

 tamed for ages appeared in Africa; and then 

 the already-tamed animals were accepted in 

 their stead. The asses, cattle, sheep, and goats 

 of Asia are now the domestic animals of the 

 negroes and of the whites in Africa, merely be- 

 cause it is easier, more profitable, and more 

 convenient to deal with animals already ac- 

 customed for ages to the yoke of domestic 

 servitude than to again go through the labor in- 

 cident to changing a wild into a tame beast. 



