152 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



The beautiful work of Lartet and Christy 

 has vividly portrayed to us the antiquities of 

 the limestone plateau of the Dordogne — the 

 ancient Aquitania — remains which recall to us 

 a population of Horites, or cave-dwellers, of a 

 time anterior to the dawn of history in France, 

 living much like the modern hunter-tribes of 

 America, and, as already stated, possibly con- 

 temporary — in their early history, at least — 

 with the mammoth and its extinct companions 

 of the later Post- Pliocene forests. We have al- 

 ready noticed the arts and implements of these 

 people, but what manner of people were they 

 in themselves ? The answer is given to us by 

 the skeletons found in the cave of Cro-ma- 

 gnon. This cavern is a shelter or hollow under 

 an overhanging ledge of limestone, and exca- 

 vated originally by the action of the weather 

 on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west and 

 the little river Vezere ; and, having originally 

 been about eight feet high and nearly twenty 

 deep, must have formed a cosey shelter from 

 rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleas- 

 ant outlook from its front. All rude races have 

 much sagacity in making selections of this sort. 

 Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious 

 enough to accommodate several families, and 



