THE ANCESTRY OF THE HORSE 165 
‘unknown. 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 
Cesar 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 
