FIELD 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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