PAINTINGS IN CAVERNS 24? 



It is, of course, only in accordance with what one would 

 expect that these pictures are of very varying degrees of 

 artistic merit. But some (a considerable number) are 

 quite remarkable for their true artistic quality. In this 

 respect they differ from the rock paintings of modern 

 savage races the Bushmen of South Africa, the 

 Australians, and the Californian Indians with which, 

 however, it is instructive to compare them. Many of them 

 agree in their essential artistic character with the carvingand 

 engraving of animals on bone and ivory so abundantly 

 produced by the later Reindeer men. It is also the fact 

 that these Franco-Spanish wall paintings were executed at 

 different periods in the Reindeer epoch. Some are more 

 primitive than others; some are very badly preserved, mere 

 scratched outlines with all the paint washed away by the 

 moisture of ages ; but others are bright and sharp in their 

 colouring to a degree which is surprising when their age 

 and long exposure are considered. The French pre- 

 historians, MM. Cartailac and the Abbe Breuil, have pro- 

 duced a sumptuous volume containing an account, with 

 large coloured plates, of the best preserved of the Altamira 

 paintings a copy of which I owe to the kindness of 

 H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco, who has ordered the publi- 

 cation of the work at his own charges. This has been 

 followed by an equally fine work under the same auspices, 

 ilustrating the wall-pictures of the Cavern of the Font-de- 

 Gaume in the Dordogne, for which we have to thank the 

 Abb6 Breuil. A further volume on Spanish Caves has 

 also appeared from the same source in the present year. 

 It is not surprising that the country folk, who, in some 

 of the Spanish localities, have known the existence 

 of these paintings from time immemorial, should regard 

 them as the work of the ancient Moors, all ancient 

 work in Spain being popularly attributed to the 

 Moors, as a sort of starting-point in history. It is, 



