Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe | Page 8

of
underground habitations have been discovered, but none of these go
back to the earliest age of all; they belong to various epochs; but the
first to excavate them was the Neolithic man, he who raised the rude
stone monuments elsewhere. He had learned to domesticate the ox and
the sheep, had made of the dog the friend of man. His wife span and he
delved; he dug the clay, and she formed it with her fingers into vessels,
on which to this day her finger-prints may be found.
These caves are hollowed out in a thick bed of cretaceous rock. The
habitations are divided into two unequal parts by a wall cut in the living
chalk. To penetrate into the innermost portion of the cave, one has to
descend by steps cut in the stone, and these steps bear indications of
long usage. The entrance is hewn out of a massive screen of rock, left
for the purpose, and on each side of the doorway the edges show the
rebate which served to receive a wooden door-frame. Two small holes
on the right and left were used for fixing bars across to hold the door
fast. A good many of these caves are provided with a ventilating shaft,
and some skilful contrivances were had recourse to for keeping out
water. Inside are shelves, recesses cut in the chalk, for lamps, and to
serve as cupboards. But probably these are due to later occupants. The
Baron de Baye, who explored these caves, picked up worked flints,
showing that their primitive occupants had been men of the prehistoric
age, and other caves associated with them that were sepulchral were
indisputably of the Neolithic age. [Footnote: De Baye (J.),
_L'Archéologie préhistorique._ Paris, 1888.]
Mankind progresses not smoothly, as by a sliding carpet ascent, but by
rugged steps broken by gaps. He halts long on one stage before taking
the next. Often he remains stationary, unable to form resolution to step
forward; sometimes even has turned round and retrograded.

The stream of civilisation flows on like a river, it is rapid in mid-
current, slow at the sides, and has its backwaters. At best, civilisation
advances by spirals. The native of New Guinea still employs stone
tools; whilst an Englishman can get a nest of matches for twopence, an
Indian laboriously kindles a fire with a couple of sticks. The prehistoric
hunter of Solutré devoured the horse. In the time of Horace so did the
Concanni of Spain. In the reign of Hakon, Athelstan's foster son,
horseflesh formed the sacrificial meal of the Norseman. At the present
day, as Mr. Lloyd George assures us, the haggard, ill-paid German
mechanic breaks his long fast on black bread with rare meals of
horseflesh.
At La Laugerie Basse, on the right bank of the Vézère, is a vast
accumulation of fallen rocks, encumbering the ground for at least
thirty-five feet in height under the overhanging cornice. The fallen
matter consists of the disintegration of the projecting lip. Against the
cliff, under the shelter of the rock, as already said, are cottages with
lean-to roofs, internally with the back and with at least half the ceiling
composed of the rock. In one of these Lartet and Christy began to sink
a pit, beside the owner's bed, and the work was carried on to conclusion
by the late Dr. Massenat. The well was driven down through successive
stages of Man; deposits from the sous dropped and trampled into the
earth floor by the children of the cottagers till the virgin soil was
reached; and there, lying on his side, with his hands to his head for
protection, and with a block of fallen rock crushing his thigh, lay the
first prehistoric occupant of this shelter.
On the Causse de Larzac is Navacelles, in Gard; you walk over the arid
plain with nothing in sight; and all at once are brought to a standstill.
You find yourself at the edge of a crater 965 feet deep, the sides in
most places precipitous, and the bottom is reached only by a zig-zag
path. In the face of one of the cliffs is the grotto of Blandas, that has
been occupied since remote ages. A methodical exploration has
revealed a spearhead of silex, a bronze axe, bone bracelets, a coin of
the Hundred Years' War, and lastly a little pin- cushion of cloth in the
shape of a heart, ornamented with metal crosses, the relic of some
refugee in the Reign of Terror, hiding to escape the guillotine.

At Conduché, where the Célé slides into the Lot, high up in the yellow
and grey limestone precipice is a cave, now accessible only by a ladder.
Hither ascended a cantonnier when the new road was made up the
valley, and here he found chipped