THE TAMING OF THE WILD 273 



dominion. One view, more widely accepted 

 than it deserves, is that he tamed horses first, 

 and then used them in the capture of others 

 less swift to escape. But, in the first place, so 

 fleet a creature as the wild horse must have 

 been the most difficult to catch. In the second, 

 it would not have been of the least use to its 

 owner in chasing such mountain types as sheep 

 and goats, the ownership of which is clearly 

 of great antiquity. These had to be followed 

 on foot. A case of a flock of wild African 

 mountain sheep being caught and tamed during 

 severe winter weather has been told in these 

 pages, and the lambs and ewes would doubt- 

 less have been secured most easily. An animal 

 like the sheep would, in fact, have made a 

 good subject for man's earliest experiments in 

 taming the wild. Here, again, common sense 

 and the Book of Genesis agree. They often do. 

 To some extent, no doubt, the taming of 

 wild animals would be increasingly difficult as 

 time went on, for they would lose that trust and 

 confidence which seems to have inspired them 

 even in the early days of navigation. It is said 

 that the first canaries ever seen by sailors 

 perched fearlessly on the men's shoulders, and 

 the penguins of the antarctic ice are still 

 stupidly unafraid. Even the jaguar was known 

 of old as amigo del Cristiano. The jaguar did 

 not know the Spaniard then. It does now. 

 s 



