t^lELD SPORTS IN ART. 243 



embers of his fire — the sleeping savage could touch it 

 with his flint-headed spear — there was the crash as it 

 fell into the prepared pit ; he awakes, the dying embers 

 cast shadows on the walls, and in these he traces the 

 shape of the vast creature hastening away. The passing 

 spirit has puffed the charred brands into a second's 

 flame, and thus shadowed itself in the hollow of the 

 cavern. 



Deeper than the excitement of the chase lies that 

 inner consciousness which dwells upon and questions 

 itself — the soul of the Cave-man pondered upon itself; 

 the question came to him, as he crouched in the semi- 

 darkness, over the fire which he had stirred, 'Will my 

 form and aerial shadow live on after my death like that 

 which passed but now ? Shall I, too, be a living dream ? ' 

 The reply was, ' Yes, I shall continue to be ; I shall 

 start forth from my burial-mound upon the chase in 

 the shadow-land just as now I start forth from my cave. 

 I shall entrap the giant woolly elephant — I shall rejoice 

 at his capture ; we shall triumph yet again and again. 

 Let then my spear and knife be buried with me, but 

 chip them first — kill them — that I may use their spirit 

 likenesses in the dream-chase.' 



With a keen-edged splinter of flint in the daylight 

 he incised the outlines of the mammoth upon a smooth 

 portion of its tusk — its image was associated with his 

 thoughts of a future life, and thus Art in its earliest in- 

 ception represented the highest aspirations of man. 



But could the ignorant savage of that long-lost day 

 have been capable of such work ? The lowest race of 

 savages in Southern Africa — the Bushmen — go about 

 with festoons of entrails wound around their loins. 

 After a successful hunt — with the pit or poisoned arrows 

 — they remove the entrails of the slain animal and wear 



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