PALEOLITHIC RACES 677 



In their apparent neglect of the human form the Solutrian 

 men resemble the Ainos of Japan, who decorate the rods used 

 to lift the moustache when drinking with figures of birds, 

 mammals, and fish, but never of men; and when asked the 

 reason for this omission they assert that they do not know how 

 to represent the human form. It is difficult to accept this state- 

 ment as sufficient. 



We must now set out on a rather difficult quest. What, 

 we may ask, has become of this gifted Solutrian race ? Has it 

 wholly vanished out of ken, either by extinction, or by trans- 

 formation into a more civilised people, or by absorption into 

 some conquering race, like say the Egyptians, or does it possibly 

 still survive, retaining more or less its primitive characters ? 



In attempting to answer this question we may begin by con- 

 fining our attention to the mural paintings and endeavour to 

 discover whether there is any existing race which practises the 

 same art. Drawing seems indeed to be almost as universal 

 as speech : the Tasmanians could trace rude outlines of objects 

 that excited their interest, the Australians and the Indians of 

 California make impressions of the human hand on the walls of 

 caves, and the Australians even sketch outlines of men and 

 animals, but these are extremely crude, and never rise to the 

 same level as the artistic sketches of palaeolithic man. There 

 are no monochrome paintings in the caves of Australia, still 

 less anything resembling the wonderful polychromes. The art 

 of the ancient Mexicans was so different that it can hardly be 

 brought into this comparison ; that of the Egyptians makes a 

 nearer approach, but it stands on a still higher plane. Africa, 

 however, furnishes us with another people, still in much the 

 same stage of culture as the Solutrian, inhabiting caves, and 

 decorating the walls with paintings, both monochrome and 

 polychrome, some of which recall in the closest manner the 

 best efforts of Solutrian times. 1 These are the Bushmen, a 

 race which once spread over a great part of South Africa, 

 but now maintains an unequal struggle for existence in the 

 Kalahari desert. Most of their paintings represent scenes from 

 the chase ; in the accompanying illustration (fig. 6) a group of 

 elands is shown attacked by lions. A good deal of the original 

 effect is lost by the translation of the various tints into black 

 and white, but it will be perceived that the outlines are firmly 

 1 Impressions of the human hand are also met with on the walls of these caves. 



