THE ANCESTRY OF THE HORSE l65 



unkno^\Ti. It has been suggested that the 

 horses which were found by Cabot in La Plata 

 in 1530 cannot have been introduced." 



Still we have not the least little bit of posi- 

 tive proof that such was the case, and although 

 the site of many an ancient Indian village has 

 been carefully explored, no bones of the horse 

 have come to light, or if they have been found, 

 bones of the ox or sheep were also present to 

 tell that the village was occupied long after 

 the advent of the whites. It is also a curious 

 fact that within historic times there have been 

 no wild horses, in the true sense of the word, 

 unless indeed those found on the steppes north 

 of the Sea of Azof be wild, and this is very 

 doubtful. But long before the dawn of history 

 the horse was domesticated in Europe, and 

 Caesar found the Germans, and even the old 

 Britons, using war chariots drawn by horses — 

 for the first use man seems to have made of 

 the horse was to aid him in killing off his fel- 

 low-man, and not until comparatively modern 

 times was the animal employed in the peace- 

 ful arts of agriculture. The immediate prede- 

 cessors of these horses were considerably 



