246 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



must be a much later idea. It is generally suggested 

 from outside by travel, or the immigration of other 

 owners with a different class of beast. The Kaffirs 

 only took to owning horses very gradually. They 

 were content with their cows, even as beasts of 

 burden ; and to this day, the Lapp makes no effort 

 to add to his primeval herd of reindeer either the 

 ponies, or the cattle, which his Norse neighbours have 

 maintained, in regions as hyperborean, ever since they 

 migrated to the far North. 



The reindeer herds of the Lapps, the Samoyeds, and 

 the East Siberian tribes continue to flourish without 

 the slightest attempt to improve or alter the wild 

 breed. The peculiar conditions and climate make 

 variation or modification unlikely. Hence, though 

 the use of the reindeer may be as old as the use of 

 the horse, it has left the type unaltered an instance 

 of primitive reclamation " preserved in ice" within the 

 Arctic Circle. 



The next examples are similar in kind. In Assam 

 the wild ox or gayal is regularly " taken up " from the 

 jungle and domesticated. The wild cows are decoyed 

 by balls of salt, and treated with this luxury till 

 they mingle with those which have been previously 

 domesticated, and are gradually incorporated in the 

 herds which are driven out into the jungle to feed, 

 and brought home to be milked. In the case of the 

 Indian buffalo and the Burmese elephant the tame and 

 wild species are also seen living in the same forests, 

 and recent travel has discovered the. wild snow-camel 

 on the cold deserts over which the tame camels have 



