Bock-Engravings of Animals and the Human Figure. 403 



are, judging from the position in which they stood, the work of 

 the same artist. On the other hand, many of the quadrupeds 

 of inferior workmanship are elsewhere represented with two legs, 

 or occasionally three. 



None of the rock-engravings mentioned in my first note exhibit 

 any attempt at perspective, if we except perhaps that of a giraffe 

 {loc. cit. Plate XII., Fig. 3). Under the head of the animal, the 

 body of which is represented in full, is that of a much smaller one. 

 It is doubtful, however, if that reduction in size is meant to convey 

 an idea of the dwarfing due to the distance. The animals depicted 

 are as a rule not grouped together, but Miss M. Wilman, a former 

 assistant of the South African Museum, and now in charge of the 

 Kimberley Museum, has obtained by rubbings, tracings of animals 

 that show a technique of very high order indeed and plenty of 

 imagination. These figures (1 and 2, Plate XIV.) are those of 

 two giraffes engraved on a small boulder the contour of which 

 made it impossible to trace the animals in their right position. 

 They form part of a group of three ; one animal reaches on one 

 side the top of a tree, the second does the same from the other 

 side, the third is no longer well defined and a rubbing could 

 not be obtained. In the same spot is a giraffe of the same size 

 as the other two suckling her young, and the execution is as 

 good as that of the two figured in Plate XIV. These sculptures 

 from the Vryburg District are probably the best of their kind, 

 and it is impossible not to credit the sculptors of these scenes 

 with plenty of imagination and a great mastery of their craft. 

 In other places discovered lately are specimens of nearly equal 

 artistic merit. Fig. 9 of Plate X. represents a galloping rhinoceros, 

 which is not only realistic in the extreme, but which might be 

 termed "■ study of a head." The sculptor plainly intended to depict 

 the fore-part of the animal only, because it abuts on the edge of the 

 boulder which is there at right angles with the face of the rock. 

 A similar instance is to be found in the admirably treated fore-part 

 of an eland (Fig. 19 of Plate XII.) obtained from a different locality, 

 and in all probability not executed by the same sculptor. There 

 has been no attempt to continue the outline on the receding face of 

 the rock. The running ostrich, Fig. 11 of Plate X., is full of Hfe. 

 But more singular perhaps than any of the illustrations here given 

 is that of Fig. 20 of Plate XII. The surface of the boulder is there 

 closely amygdoidal ; the lower part is a little more even. It is that 

 part that the engraver has chosen for depicting two blue cranes 

 (Tetrapteryx paradisea). Extraordinary as may seem the attitude 

 of these birds, it is an exact reproduction of them when they play 



