Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe | Page 6

all. It is not my intention to
give a detailed account of the prehistoric cave-dwellers. They have
been written about repeatedly. In 1882, Dr. Buckland published the
results of his exploration of the Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire in
_Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_, and sought to establish that the remains there
found pertained to the men who were swept away by Noah's flood. The
publication of Sir Charles Lyall's "The Geological Evidences of the
Antiquity of Man," in 1863, was a shock to all such as clung to the
traditional view that these deposits were due to a cosmic deluge, and
that man was created 4004 B.C.
At first the announcements proving the antiquity of man were received
with orthodox incredulity, because, although the strata, in which the
remains were found, are the most modern of all earth's formations, still
the testimony so completely contravened traditional beliefs, that the
most conclusive evidence was required for its proof. Such evidence has
been found, and is so strong, and so cumulative in character as to be
now generally accepted as conclusive.
Evidence substantiating the thesis of Lyall had been accumulating, and
the researches of Lartet and Christy in the Vézère valley, published in
1865-75, as _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_, conclusively proved that man in
Perigord had been a naked savage, contemporary with the mammoth,
the reindeer and the cave-bear, that he had not learned to domesticate
animals, to sow fields, to make pots, and that he was entirely ignorant
of the use of the metals.
Since then, in the valley of the Vézère, Les Eyzies in the Department of
Dordogne, has become a classic spot. I have already described it in
another work, [Footnote: "The Deserts of Southern France." Lond.,
Methuen, 1894.] but I must here say a few more words concerning it.
On reaching the valley of the Vézère by the train from Perigueux, one
is swung down from the plateau into a trough between steep scarps of
chalk-rock that rise from 150 to 300 feet above the placid river. These
scarps have been ploughed by the weather in long horizontal furrows,
so that they lean over as though desirous of contemplating their dirty

faces in the limpid water. Out of their clefts spring evergreen oaks,
juniper, box and sloe-bushes. Moss and lichen stain the white walls that
are streaked by black tricklings from above, and are accordingly not
beautiful--their faces are like that of a pale, dirty, and weeping child
with a cold in its head, who does not use a pocket-handkerchief.
Jackdaws haunt the upper ledges and smaller caves that gape on all
sides chattering like boys escaped from school, and anon a raven starts
forth and hoarsely calls for silence. At the foot of the stooping crags,
bowing to each other across the stream, lie masses that have broken
from above, and atop and behind these is to be seen a string of cottages
built into the rock, taking advantage of the overarching stratum of hard
chalk; and cutting into it are russet, tiled roofs, where the cottagers
have sought to expand beyond the natural shelter: they are in an
intermediate position. Just as I have seen a caddis-worm emancipating
itself from its cage, half in as a worm, half out as a fly.
Nature would seem to have specially favoured this little nook of France,
which must have been the Eden of primeval man on Gallic soil. There
he found ready-made habitations, a river abounding in fish, a forest
teeming with game; constrained periodically to descend from the
waterless plateaux, at such points as favoured a descent, to slake their
thirst at the stream, and there was the nude hunter lurking in the scrub
or behind a stone, with bow or spear awaiting his prey--his dinner and
his jacket.
What beasts did he slay? The wild horse, with huge head, was driven
by him over the edge of the precipice, and when it fell with broken
limbs or spine, was cut up with flint knives and greedily devoured. The
reindeer was also hunted, and the cumbersome mammoth enabled a
whole tribe to gorge itself.
The grottoes perforating the cliff, like bubbles in Gruyère cheese, have
been occupied consecutively to the present day. Opposite to Les Eyzies,
hanging like a net or skein of black thread to the face of the precipice,
is a hotel, part gallery, part cave--l'Auberge du Paradis; and a notice in
large capitals invites the visitor to a "Course aux Canards."
When I was last there, reaching the tavern by a ladder erected in a

grotto, I learned that an American couple on their honeymoon had
recently slept in the guest-chamber scooped out of the living rock. The
kitchen itself is a cavern, and in it are shelves, staged against the rock,
offering Chartreuse, green and yellow, Benedictine, and Crème de