Sed nemora, atque cavos montis, silvasque colebant,
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra,
Verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti.
[10] As a combination of forces it is so abstruse that it not unlikely owed its origin to accident. The elasticity and toughness of certain kinds of wood, the tension of a cord of sinew or vegetable fibre by means of a bent bow, and finally their combination to propel an arrow by human muscle, are not very obvious suggestions to the mind of a savage. As elsewhere noticed, the bow and arrow are unknown to the Polynesians in general, and to the Australians. From this fact alone it is shown that mankind were well advanced in the savage state when the bow and arrow made their first appearance.
[11] Chips from a German Workshop, Comp. Table, ii, p. 42.
[12] History of Rome, Scribner’s ed., 1871, I, p. 38.
[13] The early Spanish writers speak of a “dumb dog” found domesticated in the West India Islands, and also in Mexico and Central America. (See figures of the Aztec dog in pl. iii, vol. I, of Clavigero’s History of Mexico). I have seen no identification of the animal. They also speak of poultry as well as turkeys on the continent. The aborigines had domesticated the turkey, and the Nahuatlac tribes some species of wild fowl.
[14] We learn from the Iliad that the Greeks milked their sheep, as well as their cows and goats:
ὥστ' ὄϊες πολυπάμονος ἀνδρὸς ἐν αὐλῇ
μυρίαι ἑστήκασιν ἀμελγόμεναι γάλα λευκὸν.—Iliad, iv, 433.