822 MODIFICATIONS OF ASPECTS OF ORaANIC NATURE 



taken up, not without some effort in overcoming a certain re- 

 luctance, tlie bones of a dog who was keeping his mistress faithful 

 company in a grave undoubtedly of the earliest Neolithic period 

 in England ^. 



As regards the horse, Achilles^ fresh from his conversation with 

 Xanthus and Balius, tells the Trojans (II. xxi. 132) that even their 

 wonted sacrifices of horses will not profit them ; the Mongols (see 

 Ho worth's ' History of the Mongols/ i. 262, 289 ; and Yule*s 

 ' Marco Polo,' i. 265, cit. in loco), the Lusitanians (Livy, Epit. 49), 

 and the Norsemen (see Ibn Fozlan, 1. c), all alike sacrificed horses 

 on great occasions. 



I have not found, nor did I expect to find, any account of the 

 sacrificing of the camel, either in Semitic or classical literature ; 

 if, however, it be a sound principle that races as yet uncivilised 

 would be likely to sacrifice or otherwise deprive themselves upon 

 great occasions of the services of their oldest and most valued 

 domesticated animals 2, we ought to be able to show that the 

 Central Asiatic nomads did so by the ' ships of their deserts.' And 

 I find in Mr. Howorth's valuable ' History of the Mongols,' i. p. 426, 

 the following passage : — 



^ See 'British Barrows,* p. 518, 1877 ; ' Journal Anthropological Institute,' October, 

 1875, p. 157 ; Article XVIII, p. 394. 



^ As I am speaking of animals domesticated in Central Asia, I have not mentioned 

 the ass which, as Dr. Sclater has shown (*Proc. Zool. Soc' 1862, p. 164), owns as its 

 parent-stock the Asinus taeniopus of Abyssinia. Its history gives, however, an illus- 

 tration of the principles enunciated above at least as striking as those of any of the 

 eight Asiatic mammals just specified. From the references made to this animal in 

 the Pentateuch, it would appear to have been domesticated in the region there treated 

 of before either horse or camel, though subsequently to the ox. Pindar's reference to 

 it as used for sacrifice by the Hyperboreans (Od. Pyth. x. 1. 52) will be to persons who 

 will bear in mind its African origin almost as convincing evidence of the great anti- 

 quity of the date of its domestication as its appearance on the oldest Egyptian monu- 

 ments of the Fourth Dynasty. Hecatombs, such as Pindar speaks of, are, numerically, 

 figured on one tomb, reproduced for us by Lepsius. That the ass should so early have 

 been introduced into Hyperborean regions even by a poet is a little surprising, con- 

 sidering that the horse, which is so much better suited for such climates, was already 

 available there ; but besides being surprising it is also significant. For the sacrificial 

 and ceremonial use of this animal, see Orelli's ' Excursus ad Tacit. Hist.' v. 3, vol. ii, 

 1848, of his edition of the great historian, ibique citata; Dean Stanley's 'Jewish 

 Church,' i. 96, ibique citata; 'Pindar, ed. Dissen and Schneidewin,' sect. ii. 1847, 

 p. 353, ibique citata. For the linguistic Palaeontology of the name, see' Lenormant, 

 * Origines de Civilisation,' i. 319. For the use of the animal by the modern Hyper- 

 boreans see Middendorff, ' Sibirische Reise,' iv. 2, 2, p. 1322, where, however, that 

 naturalist, albeit reckoning ' Pferdekenntniss und Pferdezucht als seiner Specialitat,' 

 or one of them, leaves the difficulty above hinted at unexplained. 



