442 TRADITION AND HEREDITY 



the exception of the reindeer, whether belonging to the ovine, 

 equine, bovine, or camel group, had their original home in the 

 Asiatic region a very important fact when the large part played 

 by milch animals is borne in mind. It should be perhaps mentioned 

 that certain species had a wide range and extended beyond this 

 Asiatic region vaguely defined though it is. The wild ancestors 

 of the ox and the pig were indigenous in Europe as well as in 

 Asia. 1 The richness of the Asiatic endowment as regards plants 

 is no less remarkable. Practically all cereals of importance with 

 the exception of maize and one or two others originated there. 

 Wheat, barley, oats, rye, millet, and others of much importance 

 at a certain stage of progress in skill are indigenous in that 

 region. 



5. Turning to Africa we find that the large majority of domesti- 

 cated animals and of cultivated plants are not indigenous ; when 

 not introduced by Arabs or Europeans, they were derived from 

 Egypt and into Egypt they had probably been brought from 

 Asia. Of those animals now domesticated cattle, goats, sheep, 

 and fowls were derived from Egypt, the dog from Arabia, the 

 cat was brought by the Arabs, while pigs, muscovy ducks, turkeys, 

 and pigeons were introduced by the Portuguese. Sorghum grain, 

 millet, eleusine, colocasia (arum), yam, and the banana were 

 introduced from Egypt ; the sugar-cane, rice, wheat, oranges, 

 limes, cucumbers, melons, gourds, onions, and hemp were intro- 

 duced by the Arabs, while the coco-nut palm came from Asia 

 and the date-palm from the Mediterranean basin. ' The only 

 doubtful exceptions are ground-nuts . . . which may be indigenous, 

 and certain semi-cultivated beans.' 2 It may be observed that, 

 although Africa is poor as regards animals and plants fit for 

 domestication, the negro never domesticated with one or two 

 exceptions such species as were capable of domestication. Thus 

 the guinea-fowl and the coffee plant, both indigenous, were not 

 domesticated by the negroes. 



6. Of the natural endowment of other regions it is not necessary 



1 Wild oxen were abundant in Europe in the time of Julius Caesar, and of them 

 the Chillingham herd may be a remnant. Horses were abundant in Europe in 

 Neolithic times. But it is probable that both oxen and horses were first domesti- 

 cated in Asia. The ovine group was originally situated in the mountain region of 

 Central Asia, though Ovis savigni, apparently allied to the Argoli, has been found 

 fossil in the Forest Bed of Norfolk (Mower and Lydekker, loc. cit., pp. 355, 357, 

 367, and 382). 



2 Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 429. 



