116 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



mate accuracy, point to their origin from still existing species of 

 wolf and jackal, my conclusion in regard to the horse acquires col- 

 lateral corroboration. Moreover, the ancestor of our domestic cat, 

 now at last recognized, still lives in Africa, and the ancestor of our 

 goat in Asia Minor and in Crete. 26 As to the pedigree of our sheep 

 and cattle we cannot yet decide with certainty, but I have consist- 

 ent information from three different quarters, including the report 

 of a Kirghiz who declared that he had himself hunted the animal, 

 to the effect that in the heart of the steppes of Mongolia there still 

 lives a camel with all the characteristics of wildness. 27 I cannot 

 doubt the truth of the reports which I received, and the only ques- 

 tion is, whether this camel represents the original stock still living 

 in a wild state, or whether, like the tarpan, it be only an offshoot of 

 the domesticated race which has returned to wild life. As the veil 

 is slowly being lifted which hid, and still hides, the full truth from 

 our inquiring eyes, as the ancestors of our domesticated animals are 

 being discovered one after the other, and that among species still 

 living, why should we suppose that the ancestor of the horse, the 

 conditions of whose life correspond so thoroughly with those of the 

 broad measureless steppes, has died out without leaving a trace? 

 It is, I maintain, among the still living wild horses of the Old 

 World that we must look for the progenitor of our horse, and among 

 these none has more claims to the honour of being regarded as the 

 ancestor of this noble creature than the kulan. It may be that the 

 tarpan more closely resembles our horse, but, if it be true that the 

 Hyksos brought the horse to the ancient Egyptians (from whose stone 

 records we have our first knowledge of the domesticated animal), or 

 that the Egyptians themselves tamed the horse before the time of the 

 Hyksos, and therefore at least one and a half thousand years before 

 our era, then certainly the race had not its origin in the steppes of 

 the Dnieper and the Don. For nearer at hand, namely in the 

 steppes and deserts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Persia, and in 

 several valleys of Arabia and India, they had a wild horse full of 

 promise, one which still lives, our kulan. This differs indeed 

 in several features from our horse, but not more than the grey- 

 hound, the poodle, or the Newfoundland differs from the wolf 



